The Orders and Decorations of General Sir Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner, G.C.H., K.C.

An important Presentation Box, Russian or Swiss, 95mm x 68mm with rounded corners, fine gold with tortoiseshell panels, the lid set with a fine miniature portrait of the Grand Duchess Catherine, this within later decorative gold frame, the interior of the lid set with oval gold panel with presentation inscription ‘Given by Catherine Grand Duchess of all the Rufsias to Lieut. General Turner 27 June 1814’, contained in its original red leather presentation case, very good condition £5000-7000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Orders and Decorations of General Sir Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner, G.C.H., K.C..

View
Collection

‘For General Turner's service to the Grand Duchess and the Emperor, the former presented him with a magnificent snuff box, the lid of which was composed of her miniature portrait surrounded with splendid diamonds. It was subsequently taken to pieces by his descendants and the diamonds became the farmly jewels of one of them. The Emperor made him a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Anne.’

‘In the preface of a book containing the correspondence between the Tsar Alexander and his sister taken from the Imperial archives and published by the Grand Duke Nicolas in St Petersburg in 1910 (Correspondence de I'Empereur Alexandre avec sa soeur La Grande Duchesse Catharine) the following description is given of the London visit. (Translation):

The visit of Alexander I to London in the spring of 1814 is a good example of the influence which the Grand Duchess Catharine exercised over him. Of an ardent and impressionable nature, she sometimes allowed herself to be carried away by momentary impulses, which even made her commit insuperable blunders and the greatest harm. It was thus that in London she began by quarrelling with the Regent, his minister and the ambassador of Russia, Count Lieven; for her habitual impetuosity pushed her into extremes of contradiction; she sought in every way to oppose the Regent and his conservative Ministers. The advances she made to the Regent's daughter, who had quarrelled with her father, and to Lord Holland and Lord Grey, the leaders of the liberal opposition, naturally excited the anger of the government. But this was not all. On his arrival in London the Emperor Alexander refused the palaces prepared for him and preferred to stay with his sister the Grand Duchess. The Regent manifested his discontent and from the very beginning this was the origin of the most regrettable misunderstandings between the two princes, which continued up to the end without decrease or appeasement, to the great despair of the Russian ambassador. From a political point of view the visit was a failure and the result negative, to the great satisfaction of Russia's enemies, Prince Mettemich, Lord Castlereagh and so many others. The fault entire for this was the inconsiderate attitude of the Grand Duchess and the influence which she was able to exercise at a given moment over her imperial brother.

The astonishing thing is not so much the conduct of the Grand Duchess as the fact that the Emperor could abandon his reserve and prudence. May it not be that he began to be satiated with success and glory after three years of continual physical and mental exertion in the war against Napoleon? This would appear to be the only possible explanation, because he knew very well the defects of his sister and it is difficult to believe otherwise that he had come in these few months to forget for a period not only his personal interest but also that of his country.’ (Ref Sir Hilgrove Turner, Soldier and Courtier under the Georges, Arthur F. Loveday, Alkham Press, 1964).