Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Cecilie Auguste Marie; 20 September 1886 – 6 May 1954) was the last German Crown Princess and Crown Princess of Prussia as the wife of German Crown Prince Wilhelm, the son of German Emperor Wilhelm II.
Cecilie was a daughter of Frederick Francis III, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia. She was brought up with simplicity and her early life was peripatetic, spending summers in Mecklenburg and the rest of the year in the south of France. After the death of her father, she travelled every summer between 1898 and 1904 to her mother's native Russia.
On 6 June 1905, she married German Crown Prince Wilhelm. The couple had four sons and two daughters. Cecile, tall and statuesque, became popular in Germany for her sense of style. However, her husband was a womanizer and the marriage was unhappy.
After the fall of the German monarchy, at the end of World War I, Cecilie and her husband lived mostly apart. During the Weimar Republic and the Nazi period, Cecilie lived a private life mainly at Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam.
With the advance of the Soviet troops, she left the Cecilienhof in February 1945, never to return. She settled in Bad Kissingen until 1952 when she moved to an apartment in the Frauenkopf district of Stuttgart. In 1952, she published a book of memoirs. She died two years later.
THE JEWELRY IN THE PHOTO
In the original photo, crown princess Cecilie is seen wearing the Ruby jewelry of Queen Elizabeth Ludovika of Prussia.
The Necklace made from ten diamond diamond clusters surrounding faceted rubies in golden crabs, alternating with small intermediate-shaped small rubies in cross-shaped diamond frames. Several single elements are connected by snap locks so that the length of the necklace can be varied. The brooch consists of a cushioned ruby in a double frame of diamonds.
The necklace(snap locks) back and forth have a similar resemblance to the Queen Therese of Bavaria, which has been exhibited in the Treasury of the Residence in Munich. Elisabeth Ludovika (1801-1873), daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, received it as a wedding gift from her father for her wedding in 1823 with the Prussian Crown Prince, later King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. of Prussia. It is likely that her father commissioned the famous Münchner jeweler Caspar Rieländer, who also made the named Ruby Parure, with the execution of the jewelery intended for the future Queen of Prussia.