Funerary Wreath, Alx. III

[Bach]

A good friend of mine, who is a collector of an eclectic nature, recently was offered a funerary wreath from the funeral of Alexander III.

He describes it as being of gold leaf, leaves arranged in multiple small clusters on a half- or three-quarters circlet, with numbers inscribed on the inner leaves.  The information about the piece indicates that the numbering was because there were many of these struck for the funeral; each piece being numbered, was given to a courtier of varying status.

Who can I refer my friend to for verification of the provenance of this piece?  It is rumored that it was designed by Faberges but of that information we are less certain.

Please feel free to post here or e-mail me using the appropriate functions here - and thanks so much.

[Robert_Hall]

The book- The Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, The Burial Place of the Russian Imperial Family [Gendrikov & Sen'ko,  Liki Rossii, St. Petersburg 1998] has pictures of these memorial wreaths. I have never seen such pieces catalogued in any Faberge book, but I am also no expert.
The book states that the memorial of Alex. III had 674 of these, and that over 30 boxes were crated and sent to Moscow after the revolution [1919].  Apparently, they have been lost. Guess is that they were melted down.

[Robert_Hall]

I have  the b&w pictures from the book I cited as a reference, and there were hundreds of these wreaths all over the place, from previous funerals as well. So, it would make sense that other than these leaves given to indivduals, the rest would have been melted down for whatever they were worth in metal.

[hikaru]

A lot of Wreaths from the cathedral were stolen during the revolution together with the icons etc which were on the every marble coffin.

[Scott]

One of the leaves:

[Bach]

Thank you, everyone.  Mr. Kurth was a delight to e-mail with, and thanks for referring me to his excellent text as well.