15 Order of the Golden Eagle - Embroidered Breast Star to the Order.
Kingdom of Wurttemberg - Order of the Golden Eagle
Grand Cross Breast Star. Silver lantern and sequins, the five-part medallion gold and enamels. The translucent red enameled cross and the green enameled center medallion with the cipher "FR" (King Frederick I) of particularily fine workmanship.
A breast star very similar to our specimen and most likely made by the same jeweler and owned by Emperor Napoleon I was in the Emperor's carriage captured at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
It was displayed with his other orders and medals in the Armory (Zeughaus) in Berlin until 1945 when captured by the Soviets.
The medals are now in the possession of the Russian Federation and were exhibited in the Museum of the Legion of Honor in Paris 2012.
All breast stars officially issued by the Chancellery of the Order of the Golden Eagle were made with embroidered medallions.
Obviously, the manufacturer of the Napoleon star and our example had the award piece with the embroidered medallion as a template. Curiously, the star worn by Napoleon himself and presumably made by a French jeweler, as well as our specimen, have axes instead of the statute-compliant hunting horns between the tips of the arms of the cross.
See exhibition and catalogue: Musée National de la Légion d'Honneur et des Ordres de Chévalerie: "La berline de Napoléon, le mystère du butin de Waterloo (du 7 mars au 8 juillet 2012), présentait autour d'une des berlines personnelles de l'empereur prise à Waterloo en juin 1815, de nombreux éléments du butin, dont la presque totalité des ordres français et étrangers décernés à Napoléon Ie."
Extraordinarily rar breast star most probably made by the same jeweller as Napoleon's star.
From 1807 - 1816 only a little more than 100 awards of the Order of the Golden Eagle were made. (Gottschalk names 75 recipients, Klein u. Raff mention 15 crowned heads as well as 13Knights of the Order from the House of Württemberg and 95 other knights according to the court and state handbooks of the Kingdom of Württemberg 1807-1815.
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