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Auction: 26052 - Jewellery & Objets de Vertu
Lot: 72

AN EARLY 20TH CENTURY STICK PIN, WITH MONOGRAM OF DUKE ERNST II OF SAXE-ALTENBURG
The head designed as the crowned monogram 'E II' of Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Altenburg (1871-1955), set with old-cut, single-cut and rose-cut diamonds and small green stone accents.
Stamped 585 and MB
Accompanied by a burgundy velvet box with gold-tone crown and cream silk and velvet interior.
Size/dimensions: 7.80cm long
Gross weight: 3.66g


All stones are secure. Two of the green stones appear to be later replacements, in glass or soudé emerald. The gold shows small signs of wear consistent with use, including scratching to the back of the crown, and the numeral 'II' has been partly lost, probably through heat, with residual evidence remaining. The shaft is intact and straight. The pin is offered in good condition.


Ernst II was the last reigning Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, from 1908 until his abdication in 1918. Unusually among the deposed German princes, he remained in his former duchy, living on under Soviet occupation until his death.



Between the mid-nineteenth century and the First World War, the stick pin was an essential accessory for any well-dressed man, worn to secure and ornament the folds of a cravat or tie. It was also one of the most personal gifts a sovereign or royal household could bestow. Pins set with a crowned cypher or monogram were given as tokens of favour and remembrance to courtiers, officials, household staff, visiting dignitaries, and the guests and companions of royal shooting parties, regattas and state visits. Small enough to be given freely, yet unmistakably royal, they carried their recipient's connection to the court wherever they were worn.



Reading these jewels is part of their appeal. The initials are often intertwined or mirrored so that they read in either direction, sometimes with a regnal numeral, and the form of the crown above signals rank: imperial and royal crowns, the archducal crown of the Habsburgs, and the strawberry-leaved coronet of a duke. Many pins survive in the cases of the court jewellers who supplied them, and the cases in this section form a small directory of royal patronage, from Sy & Wagner, Court Goldsmiths in Berlin, and V. Mayer's Söhne, Imperial and Royal Court Jewellers in Vienna, to E. & R. Altenloh, purveyors to the King and Queen of the Belgians, and Benzie of Cowes, the yachtsmen's jeweller.



The families represented here, among them Hanover, Denmark, Belgium, Bavaria, Saxony, Prussia and Habsburg Austria, were closely bound together by marriage, and pins such as these passed freely between their courts. Within a few years, many of these monarchies had gone. The war that began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 ended in 1918 with the fall of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires, and the crowned cyphers on these small gold jewels belong to a world that vanished almost overnight.

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Estimate
£600 to £800

Starting price
£480