Imperial Russian Orphan's Benevolent Society Benefactor's
Jeton,Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna. *** SOLD ***
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia (Russian: О́льга Алекса́ндровна;
13 June [O.S. 1 June] 1882 – 24 November 1960) was the youngest child of Emperor
Alexander III of Russia and younger sister of Emperor Nicholas II.
She was raised at the Gatchina Palace outside Saint Petersburg.
Olga's relationship with her mother, Empress Marie, the daughter of
King Christian IX of Denmark, was strained and distant from childhood.
In contrast, she and her father were close. He died when she was 12,
and her brother Nicholas became emperor.
In 1901, at 19, she married Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg, who was
privately believed by family and friends to be homosexual. Their marriage of 15 years
remained unconsummated, and Peter at first refused Olga's request for a divorce.
The couple led separate lives and their marriage was eventually annulled by the
Emperor in October 1916. The following month Olga married cavalry officer
Nikolai Kulikovsky, with whom she had fallen in love several years before.
During the First World War, the Grand Duchess served as an army nurse at the
front and was awarded a medal for personal gallantry. At the downfall of the
Romanovs in the Russian Revolution of 1917, she fled with her husband
and children to Crimea, where they lived under the threat of assassination.
Her brother Nicholas and his family were shot by revolutionaries.
Olga escaped revolutionary Russia with her second husband and their two sons
in February 1920. They joined her mother, the Dowager Empress, in Denmark.
In exile, Olga acted as companion and secretary to her mother, and was often
sought out by Romanov impostors who claimed to be her dead relatives.
She met Anna Anderson, the best-known impostor, in Berlin in 1925.
After the Dowager Empress's death in 1928, Olga and her husband purchased
a dairy farm in Ballerup, near Copenhagen. She led a simple life: raising her two sons,
working on the farm and painting. During her lifetime, she painted over 2,000 works of
art, which provided extra income for both her family and the charitable causes she supported.
In 1948, feeling threatened by Joseph Stalin's regime, Olga and her immediate family
relocated to a farm in Ontario, Canada. With advancing age, Olga and her husband
moved to a bungalow near Cooksville, Ontario. Colonel Kulikovsky died there in 1958.
Two years later, as her health deteriorated, Olga moved with friends to a small apartment
in East Toronto. She died aged 78, seven months after her older sister, Xenia. At the end
of her life and afterwards,Olga was widely labelled the last Grand Duchess of Imperial Russia.
This is rare original period made in Imperial Russia silver jeton with amazing details.
Ring is hallmarked “84 AP”. No enamel damages. Please have a look at the pictures.
"Do not let the hand stop giving". The title in the obverse means charitable aims
in orthodoxy. "OA" ,Olga Alexandrovna Society. On reverse Pelican feeding their
young pelicans, with its blood symbol of sacrifice, and the name and surname of
the owner of jetton - *Violet Horncastle*
Violet Horncastle (1879 – 1962)
Violet Horncastle was a daughter of Lord Walter Radcliffe Horncastle (first Lord Mayor of Hackney,
Viscount of Kingdom of Portugal) and Henrietta Horncastle (well known tennis player).
Violet had great talent for music and she also was successful poetess. She was married to
Leon Anatoli Jouques on 31st March 1909. Jouques worked to great effect on behalf of
British industry, brokering sales of British made munitions to Russia in competition with
the Krupps industries in Germany. He also travelled in Russia and Eastern Europe for the
Marconi Company and succeeded in persuading them to set up Marconi radio stations,
again in competition with German industry.
At the outbreak of the Great War he set up a business to manufacture aircraft on government
contracts. Jougues Aviation Works, Willesden later joined the Society of British Aircraft
Constructions (SBAC). Jouques contracted with Preston Watson to build 56 Watson’s
designed BE2 aircrafts, plus parts for another 150, Watson to receive a royalty for each.
Leon was son of David Jouques from Vilna, Russia (now Lithuania) and late Rebecca
Jouques, nee Kupernik. He died 5 Apr 1923 at Meran, Tyrol, Italy, but address in
probate records: 62 Wellbeck Street, Cavendish Square, Middlesex.
