Jewellery, Watches and Objects of Vertu

Of Royal interest: An agate, enamel and half pearl memorial pendant, the oval cabochon banded agate collet set within a black enamel and half pearl surround, with glazed locket verso displaying a photograph of Feodora of Leiningen, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, in widow’s silks, the mount inscribed ‘In recollection of dear Gt aunt Feodora b. Dec 1807 d. Sept 23 1872, From grandmama V.R.’, to black enamel decorated bale, pendant length 42mm. £800-1200

Feodora of Leiningen, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (December 1807 - September 1872) was the half sister of Queen Victoria. Feodora and her brother Carl were the children of Emich Carl, Prince of Leiningen (1763-1814) and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (1786-1861). Following the death of her first husband, Princess Victoria married the English Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, and they had a daughter, Victoria (Queen Victoria).

Queen Victoria and her elder half sister enjoyed a close relationship throughout their lives. In a letter addressed to Victoria and dated 1854, found in Feodora’s papers on her death she had written: ‘I can never thank you enough for all you have done for me, for your great love and tender affection. These feelings cannot die, they must and will live in my soul - till we meet again, never more to be separated - and you will not forget’. Feodora’s husband died in 1860 and Queen Victoria’s husband Albert died a year later.

Feodora died on 23 September 1872 and Queen Victoria wrote after her sister’s death: ‘I stand so alone now, no near and dear one near my own age, or older to whom I could look up to, left! All, all gone! She was my last near relative on an equality with me, the last link with my childhood and youth’.

See: Rappaport, H., Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion, 2003.

This brooch is illustrated in Victorian Jewellery, by Margaret Flower, published by Cassell & Company Ltd, 1951, page 178.