AN OTTOMAN SILVER-EMBROIDERED RED MOROCCO LEATHER PORTEFEUILLE

This concertina portfolio case is embroidered with the initials of Elizabeth Alexeievna, wife of the Tsar Alexander I of Russia, who was born in 1779 as Princess Louise Maria Auguste of Baden of the House of Zähringen. Her betrothal to the eldest grandson of Catherine the Great was initiated in 1792, when she and her younger sister Frederica travelled to St. Petersburg at the invitation of the Empress, and the marriage took place in 1793. She ascended to the throne with her husband in 1801 following the assassination of Paul I. She died shortly after her husband, in May 1826.

In his personal papers Michael Inchbald noted that "The pieces of leather and designs sent by portfolio makers in Faubourg St. Honoré, Paris, to Constantinople to be embroidered… then returned to Paris to be made up and completed". Such portefeuilles were often embroidered with the word Constantinople, the date and Ottoman motifs, such as a large dark green example with a similar brass lock (sold Sotheby's London, 6 April 2011, lot 414, £55,250).