![]() ![]() Often the gifts were rich in personal meaning, such as a paper-knife by Faberge to her former governess, Margaret Hardcastle Jackson, in 1900, who could presumably use it to open her letters. She enjoyed filling her private rooms with beautiful objects which either she had chosen or were given as gifts. The Tsarina’s habit was to send personal gifts to her close friends, sometimes made with her own hand, but she often also sent pieces of jewellery. I knew it from an earlier auction Russian Art at Christie’s London in 2010. ![]() ![]() Unknown to me, it was sold a month afterwards in an auction at Sotheby’s New York, but nor was it the only brooch of Pollie’s to have been sold again. I had first encountered it as a personal gift from Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna (1872-1918) to the friend of her youth, Marion Louisa ‘Pollie’ Delmé-Radcliffe, Baroness Ungern-Sternberg whose touching connection I explored in a short article for my Royal Central blog back in September 2018. An exquisite gold, sapphire and diamond brooch crafted in St Petersburg was consigned to auction in October 2018. ![]()
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