An original Victorian royal mourning and memorial card dating from 1878, commemorating Princess Alice (1843–1878), daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and later Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine. The card is executed in striking deep embossed relief, depicting two large mourning angels flanking the central inscription and looking down towards a stepped monument or tomb. The entire composition is surrounded by a broad black mourning border. The central inscription reads: “To the Memory of H.R.H. THE PRINCESS ALICE (Grand Duchess of Hesse Darmstadt), SECOND DAUGHTER OF THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND.” Her birth and death dates follow: “Born April 25, 1843; Died December 14, 1878, The Anniversary of her Father's death.” The final line records a particularly poignant coincidence: Princess Alice died on 14 December 1878, exactly seventeen years to the day after the death of her father, Prince Albert, on 14 December 1861. Below appear the commemorative quotations: “THE MEMORY OF THE JUST IS BLESSED.” “AS MANY AS I LOVE, I CHASTEN.” Princess Alice married Prince Louis of Hesse, later Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and by Rhine. She died of diphtheria aged only 35 after caring for members of her family affected by the disease and became the first of Queen Victoria's children to die. Alice was also the mother of Princess Alix of Hesse, later Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Tsar Nicholas II and the last Empress of Russia. An unusually decorative piece of Victorian royal mourning ephemera combining the commemoration of Queen Victoria's daughter, the poignant anniversary of Prince Albert's death, elaborate embossed angels and funerary imagery, and its original broad black mourning border.
Auction 01: Auction 01 – Historical Letters, Documents & Autographs — Melis Antiques & Art