The Wooden Collection

Ref 386 - ♥♥♥♥♥

​​

This seal may have possibly belonged to Pierre-Louis-Jean-Casimir de Blacas d’Aulps (1771–1839), first Duke of Blacas and Prince of Blacas d’Aulps. Although this attribution remains unproven, the princely achievement and early nineteenth-century appearance make him a plausible owner. The Blacas were an ancient noble family of Provence, with medieval origins and estates including Aulps, Vérignon and Aiguines. Their ancestral arms are remarkably simple: Argent, a sixteen-rayed star Gules, with the motto “Pro Deo, Pro Rege” (“For God, for the King”). Pierre-Louis, a devoted Bourbon royalist and close adviser to Louis XVIII, held important political and diplomatic positions. He became a hereditary Peer of France in 1815 and was created Duke of Blacas in 1821. After the Revolution of 1830, he followed the exiled Bourbon court. On 23 June 1838, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria granted him the hereditary title of Prince of Blacas d’Aulps, transmitted by male primogeniture. He died in Vienna in 1839, barely a year after his elevation. The seal’s princely coronet, mantle and elaborate ornaments, together with its engraved metal matrix and turned wooden handle, are compatible with this period. If commissioned for Pierre-Louis, it may date from 1838 – 1839. Alternatively, it could have belonged to a successor bearing the same title. The family later acquired Château d’Ussé in the Loire Valley through inheritance.