3-039-101 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Grandmother's Bridal Crown," by A. Tidemand - a bridal gift to the Princess of Sweden from the Ladies of Norway, 1871. 'The incident refers to the singular custom in Norway and Sweden of the bride wearing a handsome crown at her wedding...The bridal crown is the most precious relic of the family; it is a heirloom which descends from mother to daughter often for several generations...many of them evince the remarkable skill of the ancient Scandinavian metal-workers...an aged dame, with natural pride, is showing the splendid bridal ornament, the glory of her own youth, to her grandchildren. She has taken it out of the antique trunk where the most precious family relics are preserved; and as she lifts the veil...she watches, with a touching expression of maternal...love and pride, the pretty maiden kneeling with girlish naivete and modesty on the footstool before her. That fair brow will next be decked with the symbol of nuptial honour, as it once decked the brow now deeply furrowed by Time; the veil will by-and-by fall over that long, flowing, flaxen hair, as it once fell over hair now snowy white with age...The two prints...nailed inside the lid of the open trunk are doubtless intended as portraits of the Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.