Maine Antique Digest May 2015

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8-D Maine Antique Digest, May 2015
- FEATURE -
The splendid silver model of the German bat-
tleship Kaiser Friedrich III, seen upper right
and below in a close-up detail, was presented
over a hundred years ago by officers of the 1st
Squadron of the Imperial German Fleet to Vice
Admiral, Prince Heinrich of Prussia, whose flag-
ship it had been. Presumably this presentation was
made in 1903, on the occasion of his replacement
in that role by Admiral Hans von Koester.
The real thing had been launched on July 1, 1896,
by Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor
and King of Prussia, who eight years earlier had
succeeded to power in what is known in German
history as the “Year of the Three Emperors.”
That was the year in which the Emperor Wilhelm
I died, but his only son, for whom the battleship
was later named, was already terminally ill and
reigned for only 99 days before he in turn was suc-
ceeded by his eldest son, Wilhelm II—or “Kaiser
Bill” as this haughty, impetuous eldest grandson of
Queen Victoria came to be contemptuously known
in England during the 1914-18 war that eventu-
ally brought about his abdication and exile to the
Netherlands.
Both Wilhelm II and his younger brother, Prince
Heinrich, a career naval officer who held vari-
ous commands and eventually rose to the rank of
Grand Admiral, had collections of elaborate mod-
els such as this. They were deemed very suitable
as prestigious gifts to members of the nobility and
those in high command.
Wilhelm II’s collection, as one might expect,
was rather grander and larger than that of his
younger brother, running to 15 comparable silver
models that were in 1919 transferred to the Hohen-
zollern Museum. Prince Heinrich’s model of the
Kaiser Friedrich III, on the other hand, stayed in
his family until the mid-1950s, when it was sold at
auction in Bonn and acquired by the family of the
consignor to the February 24 Sotheby’s sale, “Of
Royal and Noble Descent,” that has contributed a
number of lots to this “Letter from London.”
The real warship saw service right up to the
opening years of World War I, but was involved in
few, if any, hostile engagements. She was decom-
missioned in 1915, used briefly as a prison ship,
then as a radio-telegraphy school before finally
being scrapped in 1920. The bow crest, bearing a
bust of Friedrich III, was however saved and can
still be seen in the Militärhistorisches Museum der
Bundeswehr in Dresden.
The finely detailed model, made by M. Fadder-
jahn of Berlin and a little over 4' long, was sold for
$115,835 in London.
When first I came across the illustration of
the gold collar reproduced here, in the cat-
alogue for a December 3, 2014, Sotheby’s
sale of European works of art, I thought immediately
of Anglo-Saxon ornament and jewellery—the use of
gold inset with garnets and highly stylised animal
heads forming part of the design—but this collar and
the associated beads are earlier still and from a land
far removed from Saxon England and the countries of
northern Europe.
This royal collar is not part of the world of Alfred
the Great or his antecedents, but much more closely
linked to that of Attila the Hun.
A lot with a Kyrgyzstan provenance that dates back
to the late 19th century, and perhaps made in that
region in the 5th century, this magnificent piece was
described and discussed in some detail and at length
in the sale catalogue by Dr. Noël Adams, a curator at
the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City
and a specialist in garnet cloisonné who is obviously
very familiar and knowledgeable on the Sutton Hoo
and other Anglo-Saxon finds.
In my distillation of just some of the highly infor-
mative background that she provided, I hope that I
have not been too brutal or unintentionally inaccurate.
And the headline is all my own and wholly unfounded
but appealing journalistic speculation.
The collar, it seems, can be related to a tradition
of high-status dragon and beast terminals that had
been introduced to the west by groups of nomadic,
horse-mounted warriors from the east, the Huns, who
had arrived in the region northeast of the Black Sea
in the late 4th century. Allying themselves with war-
riors from local tribes such as the Alans, they raided
the agricultural settlements and cities on the north-
ern shores of the Black Sea, eventually forcing large
numbers of Germanic-speaking peoples to flee to the
safety of the Roman Empire.
This was the beginning of a period when Hunnic
confederations, often made up of people from
different ethnic backgrounds, were major polit-
ical powers. Economic and cultural exchange
between east and west characterised the Hunnic
period and was enhanced during the period of
Attila’s control of the Carpathian Basin (c. 430-
455), when even the Byzantines paid gold tribute
to keep the confederation at bay.
Torcs, necklaces, and arm rings with beast-head
terminals have been found from Central Asia to
the Caucasus, Black Sea, and Carpathians, and
in the few cases where such finds have context,
it is clear that these ornaments were intended to
be worn by people of the highest social status—
hence its description as a royal piece.
Named for its first recorded 19th-century
owner, Sansyzbay Umutkor, the collar comprises
a woven gold strap with gold and garnet cloi-
sonné dragon terminals, the back ends of which
are open sockets fashioned to receive the strap
ends. Each dragon has a ribbed loop in its mouth
in order to tie the two ends together, and the two
beads that accompany the collar may have been
the weighted ends of the fastening ties, although
this cannot be proven.
The workmanship, says Dr. Adams, is typical
of many Hunnic-period ornaments where
craftsmen had access to garnet stones of
excellent quality, possibly sourced from
deposits in modern Afghanistan and
Pakistan. Their gold working techniques,
such as granulation, are superbly con-
trolled, but having few lapidary skills,
these same craftsmen relied on traded
stones, precut to certain shapes—such as
the rectangles seen on the terminals.
Despite the loss of some of the stones,
it remains a stunning work and sold in the
end for a mid-estimate $379,760.
A close-up view showing the
detailed workmanship.
A Battleship Fit for a Princely Grand Admiral
A detailed silver model of the German battleship
Kaiser Friedrich III, sold for $115,835 by Sotheby’s.
A 5th Century Hunnic Dragon Collar—Worthy of Attila Himself?
The 5th-century Hunnic gold
collar with dragon head termi-
nals and (associated?) beads that
sold for $379,760 at Sotheby’s in
December—and at left, a close-up
of those dragon terminals.
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