She was the daughter of Queen Victoria, the princess for whom the province of Alberta was later named. He was the dashing heir to a dukedom and the future governor general of Canada.
And the March, 1871, marriage of Princess Louise Caroline Alberta to the Marquess of Lorne was the social event of the century for a royalty-obsessed British Empire — including Canada, the couple's home from 1878 to 1883.
Now, 138 years after the bride and groom's lavish nuptials at Windsor Castle, the last known piece of their wedding cake — a towering, two-metre-tall creation that scholars have described as one of history's greatest examples of the confectioner's art — is to be sold at an auction in Britain.
Carefully wrapped in paper and twine, the bizarre, matchbox-sized royal relic is stone stale more than a century after being sliced. But the tiny, star attraction at the "Antiques for Everyone" auction in Birmingham this week is grabbing headlines across Britain.
"The piece on sale at the fair is one-inch wide and is not to be eaten," warns an Antiques for Everyone press release.
"This is a fantastic piece of history, and is a wonderful heirloom to pass on to future generations," adds antique dealer John Shepherd, who is selling the petrified dessert at one of Britain's largest public auctions.
While the Princess Louise cake is valued at about $300, royal artifacts are frequently purchased at far higher prices than their pre-sale estimates.
Created by Her Majesty's Chief Confectioner, a Mr. Ponder, the 1871 colossus weighed about 100 kilograms and "is known to be one of the most ostentatious wedding cakes of the Victorian era," said auction organizers.
Canada's loyal monarchists were still buzzing about the giant cake when the Marquess of Lorne and Princess Louise arrived in this country seven years after their wedding.
"The royal wedding cake was greatly admired for its elegance and artistic skill," author Charles Tuttle wrote in his 1878 book Royalty in Canada, published as the royal couple prepared to take up residence at Rideau Hall in Ottawa.
"It stood upon a circular gold plateau," he added, describing a lower layer of "eight compartments" featuring the couple's coats of arms, a central layer that "represented a temple" ringed by doves, small statues of winged figures representing art, science, agriculture and commerce, all held up by "eight Corinthian pillars" and "surmounted with a figure of Hebe," the Greek goddess of youth.
"Monumentality was the order of the day," historian Emily Allen noted in her 2003 essay "Victorian Wedding Cakes and Royal Spectacle."
She has described how the Princess Louise cake — "crowned by a figure of a vestal virgin" — was "decorated with white satin" and "wreaths of orange blossoms" surrounding "the initials 'L L' entwined in blue."
http://www.vancouversun.com/Entertai...490/story.html