Historical cover sent from Charlottenburg, Berlin, on 9 December 1879, to Montagu Corry, Esq., C.B. (1838–1903), private secretary and one of the closest and most trusted associates of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, at 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, London. The cover has an interesting historical association with the period following the Congress of Berlin of 1878. Approximately eighteen months earlier, Corry had accompanied Disraeli to Berlin and served as one of the secretaries to the British Special Embassy at the Congress. For his services there, Corry was appointed C.B. – Companion of the Order of the Bath, the distinction appearing after his name on the present cover. The Congress of Berlin was one of the major diplomatic events of Disraeli’s second premiership, and European diplomatic activity concerning the implementation of parts of the Berlin settlement continued during 1879. However, no evidence is presently available to establish that the contents of this particular cover were connected with those diplomatic negotiations. The front bears two German 10 Pfennig postage stamps, cancelled at Charlottenburg on 9 December 1879. The reverse bears a London S.W. receiving mark dated 10 December 1879, showing that the cover reached London the day after it was posted in Berlin. The reverse also retains an attractive original red wax seal bearing a standing classical-style human figure within an oval device. The owner of the seal has not been identified. An interesting Victorian postal-history item linking Berlin, Montagu Corry, 10 Downing Street and Benjamin Disraeli’s closest circle, relatively shortly after Disraeli and Corry’s historic mission to the Congress of Berlin.
Auction 01: Auction 01 – Historical Letters, Documents & Autographs — Melis Antiques & Art