Image of mounted silk portrait of Friedrich III Image of mounted silk portrait of Friedrick III
 
image courtesy of Austin Sprake from his book Stevengraphs

Friedrich III

of Germany


Reference Number:- Sprake Number:- Godden Number:-
so 264   109 107a
 
Words:
Woven on silk:-
 
  
 

Printed at bottom of card-mount:-
Friedrich III 
 

Size:
Card-mount:
cm deep by cm wide

silk:
cm deep by cm wide

Comments:
by Sprake:

 

by Godden:
Frederich III, the eldest son of Prince William of Prussia, the first German emperor, was born in Potsdam on 18 October 1831.
He visited England in 1851 on the occasion of the Great Exhibition; and he married Victoria, the Princess Royal, in London on 25 January 1858.
On the death of his father in March 1888, he succeeded to the German throne but enjoyed a reign of only 99 days before he died on 15 June 1888.

Frederick (or Friedrich) III was first depicted as 'Kronprinz Friedrick Wilhelm', to quote from the woven title on the example shown on the image of the Stevens presentation volume [so260].

A later silk shows Friedrich III after he had succeeded to the German throne in March 1888. This very rare subject is found on card-mount of type C.

The title FRIEDRICH III was first listed on label 23+27+2 of 1888, but the silk seems to have been made mainly for the continental market. It is included on the Franz Drahne German back-label.
Examples are now very rare.

Other comments:
The two images above are identical. The names printed on the card mount however are slightly different - Godden records the title Friedrich III, on the left. Sprake's image (right) is titled Friedrick III

The title first appears on label 23+27+2, of March or April 1888, as Friedrick III.
It remained as that until label 29+38, of 1893, when it changed to Frederick III, at which spelling it remained until back labels were discontinued in 1910.
At no time did the Stevens back label contain the Friedrich III spelling recorded by Godden, and as shown on the label above.

The printing of the label above is also not typical of Stevens, and it is possible this card-mount was printed on the continent.

 



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This page was created on 13 April 2004
new colour image added 24 January 2006 © Peter Daws
Web site address: www.victoriansilk.com