Lady Granville's Dazzling Diplomatic Jewels for a Remarkable Russian Imperial Coronation
A parure set with carved gemstones, fit for the wife of an Ambassador Extraordinary, remains in an aristocratic collection today
The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, Peregrine and Amanda Cavendish, recently loaned a spectacular suite of Victorian jewelry to the Ashmolean in Oxford as part of the museum's "Colour Revolution" exhibition. The pieces themselves are visually fascinating, but even more interesting is the story of its creation—and the captivating woman who wore it.
This story begins not with a coronation, but with a war. In the winter of 1855, Britain was at war. Queen Victoria's armed forces were fighting in Crimea alongside Napoleon III's French troops and a coalition of soldiers from the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia against Emperor Nicholas I's Russian imperial army. The reasons for the war were complex, but back in Britain, Victoria's subjects supported the war with patriotic enthusiasm, gobbling up daily reports from newspaper reporters. Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole capably tended to the wounded, and the poet laureate, Lord Tennyson, immortalized the tragic bravery of British soldiers in "The Charge of the Light Brigade."
The Russians were already struggling to hold their ground in Crimea when, on March 2, 1855, Emperor Nicholas I died of pneumonia in St. Petersburg. His son and successor, Emperor Alexander II, at first decided to stay the course in the war. The Crimean capital, Sevastopol, had been under siege for months. The grueling fighting went on until finally, in September 1855, the Russians began to abandon the burning city. The new tsar finally decided to concede in January 1856, and in March, the war was officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. The Russians came out on the losing end—not a very promising beginning to the reign of Alexander II.
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