PRUSSIA, ORDER OF THE BLACK EAGLE |

Badge of the Order, in gold and blue enamel, with black-painted eagles in the angles and central gold monogram FR (for Frederick III), with double-loop suspension ring and length of original sash ribbon, small repair to enamel at reverse centre and eagles re-blackened, good very fine

Awarded in 1852. Queen Victoria, when writing to Prince George from Balmoral on 22 September 1852 regarding the death of the Duke of Wellington, added: ‘I give you, with the greatest of pleasure, permission to accept and wear the Order of the Black Eagle which the King of Prussia has been so kind as to give you’. Following his father’s death in 1850 the Duke had returned Adolphus’s insignia of the Orders of the Black and Red Eagles to Frederick William IV of Prussia. A formal letter acknowledging their safe return survives, written in French, dated 7 September 1850 and bearing the signature ‘Fredéric Guillaume’.