Decanter with plug - Donated by Her Majesty Queen Augusta

• inscription: Donated by Her Majesty Queen Augusta to the women's society of Grimmen district;
  Fritz W. Heckert glass works in Petersdorf/Silesia;
  cut and engraved glass with enamel, gold painting and ornaments: jodphur,
  circa 1885, height: 22 cm

Artistically designed with enamel paints, the cut glass decanter is a product of the Silesian glass factories owned by Fritz Heckert in Petersdorf. The ornamental style is called jodphur.

It comes from the estate of the painter Max von Rüdiger von der Lage (Potsdam). It is passed on to an antiques dealer in Berlin when his heirs sell off his possessions, and from there it makes its way to Grimmen Museum.

Besides a few grooves, the decanter bears an inscription on the specially manufactured banderole around the plug: 'A gift by H[er] M[ajesty] Queen Augusta to the women's society in the district of Grimmen'.

The Prussian Queen and subsequent Empress Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1811-1890), wife to Emperor Wilhelm I, founded the Women's Society of the Fatherland in 1866. Its task included caring for wounded and infirm soldiers. A network of chapters emerges and spreads. The district chapter in Grimmen is set up in the prestigious 'Hotel Homeyer' on 3 October 1884, at which time it already has 108 charter members.

Augusta accepts the society into the parent organisation on 16 December. She signs and sends a certificate to the city, which is framed and displayed on the wall in the society's clubhouse from then on. Countess Thoma Wachtmeister auf Bassendorf chairs the society.

The first meeting of its board resolves 'to focus the entire activities of the society on the fastest possible recruitment of a district deaconess for each of the cities of Grimmen and Loitz.' Other activities include the charitable concerts or theatre performance, as well as the organisation of auctions. The Empress regularly donates items to these events, probably also this glass decanter (1885).

After her death in 1890, Augusta Victoria (1858-1921), the wife of Augusta's grandson, later Emperor Wilhelm II, takes over the patronage.

She may also have donated the glass utensil. The museum acquires the carafe from an antique's dealer in 2013.