A pair of silver-mounted crystal Royal presentation claret jugs

A pair of silver-mounted crystal Royal presentation claret jugs, each with a globular diamond cut body and long facetted neck, applied with silver spouts with hinged lids and arched handles engraved alternately ‘To E. Hobbs from Henry and Waldemar, Princes of Prussia, 1869’ and ‘To E. Hobbs from Charlotte and Victoria, Princesses of Prussia, 1869.’ German, 750 standard, with maker’s mark ‘KB‘, 1869.

Provenance: The Honourable Company of Master Mariners; Presented by Doreen Smith, widow of Warden W. D. Smith in 1975.

Footnote: These claret jugs were presented as a gift to Emma Hobbs, the British nurse (nanny) who cared for Princess Victoria’s children (younger siblings of the future Kaiser Wilhelm II), grandchildren of Queen Victoria. Her duties included teaching them English and their customs. Whilst Wilhelm fought against his Anglophile parents, he couldn’t help reluctantly admiring his British family and was very proud to be Queen Victoria’s grandson. In fact it is recorded that the person who was closest to Wilhelm in his early childhood was, his nurse, Emma Hobbs. She left the German Royal service to return to Britain to marry Mr. Grisson in 1869, whose son Charles became a Master Mariner.