Aigrette of Duke Francis I (1577 - 1620)

Aigrettes were hat ornaments used for attaching a feather headpiece, usually ostrich or heron feathers. In the second half of the 16th century, they usually took the form of brooches, with which a bunch of real feathers was attached to the headgear. With time, ornaments with feathers made in the jewellery technique also started to be designed. One of the most beautiful jewels of this type is the aigrette of Duke Francis I of Pomerania. Set with diamonds, decorated with pearls and colourful enamel, it has the shape of a rosette topped with seven jewellery feathers. Originally the jewel's composition was completed with pearls placed in corners of the rosette and at the tips of the feathers. Only one of them, suspended at the bottom, has been fragmentarily preserved to this day. The Szczecin jewel is characterised by an interesting Mannerist composition based on the interpenetration and interplay of rectangular and rhomboidal forms. Researchers associate it with Jacob Mores the Elder, a Hamburg goldsmith, commissioned among others by the kings of Denmark, the Electors of Saxony and the Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein. In his surviving drawings, designs of similarly composed ornaments can be found.The aigrette, together with 13 rosettes, decorated the cap in which Duke Francis I was buried. In the collection of Merseburg Cathedral, there is a small, the Duke's posthumous image preserved from 1621, in which he is shown in a black and gold hood decorated with rosettes fastened in a chain and with a centrally placed aigrette fastened with a tuft of black heron feathers, traditionally used in burials. The painting captures the original colour effect of the jewel, with distinctive accents of red enamel and the white of the pearls harmonising with the white enamelled feathers and volutes. On the other hand, in an unpreserved portrait of the Duke from 1616, made by Johann Leonisch, the same aigrette is pinned to the front of the hat, directly above the clasp, against the background of an amazing bundle of ostrich feathers. Although aigrettes were popular ornaments, few have survived to our times, and the jewel from the Szczecin collection is one of the most valuable.

Monika Frankowska-Makała