Breast star was donated to the museum by Vera Konstantinovna (April 11 [24], 1906 , Pavlovsk - January 11, 2001, Valley Cottage, near New York), Russian princess of imperial blood, youngest daughter of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich and Grand Duchess Elizaveta Mavrikievna, great-granddaughter of the emperor Nicholas I. In the last years of her life, the Supreme Monarchical Council considered her the Empress of Russia, after whose death there were no heirs to the Russian throne.
Order’s motto "For Love and Fatherland."
Princess Vera before the Revolution and shortly after.
In a letter that accompanied the donation of this artifact, Princess Vera wrote: "The enclosed star is very old, older than the later diamond examples… Probably belonged to my maternal grandmother, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Meiningen." Princess Augusta was awarded the order in 1884, the year of the marriage of her daughter, Elizaveta Mavrikievna, to Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. By this time, metal breast stars with diamonds had been in use for decades, indicating that the breast star in fact belonged to an even earlier recipient.