"My Dear Marquis Agnes De Stoeckl" 1952 KINNARD, George [edited by]

KINNARD, George [edited by]

[222] pp.

John Murray

1952

8 3/4" x 5 7/8"

Book jacket design by Osbert Lancaster

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Baroness de Stoeckl (1874-1968), née Agnes Barron, in 1892 married Baron Alexander de Stoeckl, a Russian diplomat and gentleman-in-waiting to Grand Duchess George of Russia and then to Grand Duke Michael. Baron de Stoeckl’s father is credited with the 1867 sale of Alaska to the United States for £7,200,000.

The Baroness is seen here in the Russian-style court gown she wore to the coronation of King Edward VII. She also wears an archaic kokoshnik-style diamond hair ornament, and in addition to a copious number of Russian-style bracelets and rings, her corsage is heavily ornamented with strings of pearls, a large diamond swallow brooch and an assortment of diamond brooches.

When she was 78 she was persuaded to write her memoirs, which she claims she did in order to escape the “ennui of embroidery”. In the mock obituary she added to the front of her autobiography, Baroness de Stoeckl wrote: ‘She spent the greater part of her life amidst the courts of Europe, and she was called ‘Aunty Ag’ by half the royal personages.’ In fact, she was known as a witty conversationalist.

Born to Irish parents, her father’s vast wealth was derived from Mexico and he lived in Paris and entertained the fashionable world “on a princely scale.” According to her autobiography Baroness de Stoeckl found that it was necessary to do “much hard work resting” to look fresh, a sentiment picked up later by Queen Marie of Rumania who devoted a month each year “to her beauty”.

On her first visit to Russia Tsar Nicholas II gave her land in the Crimea on which he intended to build her a country home.