Kaiser Wilhelm II Repousse Portrait Plaque Garde du Corps Eagle Helmet on Oak

This is an Imperial German patriotic portrait plaque depicting Kaiser Wilhelm II in profile, worked in silvered white-metal repoussé and mounted on a dark oak board, the Emperor shown in the eagle-crested parade helmet and cuirass of the Gardes du Corps. The plaque measures 8.5 by 6.5 inches (21.6 by 16.5 cm) overall and is fitted on the reverse with a folding easel strut and a hanging ring, allowing it to be either stood on a surface or hung on a wall.

The portrait is formed as an oval relief, the Emperor's head and shoulders raised in repoussé from a thin sheet of silvered metal and set within a cast decorative border of foliate ornament. Wilhelm II is shown in right profile with his characteristic upswept, waxed mustache, wearing the helmet of the Prussian Gardes du Corps, the elite Guard heavy cavalry: rather than the spike of the ordinary Pickelhaube, the helmet is surmounted by a spread-winged parade eagle (Gardeadler), the distinctive crest of the Guard cuirassier and Garde du Corps helmet, with a small crowned cypher on the browplate. He wears the metal cuirassier shoulder scales and a bullion-fringed epaulette, and on his breast appears the star of a high order, the whole presenting the Emperor in the magnificent parade dress of his favored Guard regiment. The relief is mounted onto the oak plaque, which is finished dark and left otherwise plain so that the silvered portrait stands out against the wood.

The subject is the last German Emperor, and the plaque belongs to the vast material culture of loyalty and display that surrounded him. Wilhelm II (1859 to 1941) came to the throne in 1888 as German Emperor and King of Prussia, and his reign of thirty years, until his abdication at the end of the First World War in 1918, gave its name to the Wilhelmine era. A grandson of Queen Victoria, he was a ruler of restless energy and deep attachment to the army, and he delighted above all in military uniform and ceremony; the Gardes du Corps, the senior regiment of the Prussian Guard cavalry whose eagle-crested helmet and cuirass he wears here, was among the regiments closest to his person, and he was frequently portrayed in its resplendent parade dress. Portrait plaques, busts, prints, and medallions of the Kaiser were produced in enormous numbers throughout his reign for display in homes, offices, barracks, veterans' clubhouses, and taverns, expressions of patriotic sentiment and personal loyalty to the sovereign. A repoussé metal portrait such as this, mounted for standing or hanging, would have served exactly that purpose, a domestic image of the Emperor in his most martial and splendid aspect.

The image also documents the uniform itself, one of the most spectacular in the German army. The Gardes du Corps and the Guard Cuirassiers wore, for parade, a polished helmet crowned not with a spike but with a full spread eagle of tombak or silver, together with a burnished cuirass, a dress that consciously recalled the heavy cavalry of an earlier age and that made these regiments the visual centerpiece of every great state parade in Berlin and Potsdam. To see the Kaiser rendered in this uniform is to see him as he most wished to be seen, at the head of his Guard.

Condition is consistent with age and with the thin silvered metal from which the relief is struck. The repoussé portrait is complete and sharp in its detail, the face, helmet, eagle crest, and cuirass all clearly modeled, but the silvered finish shows wear and flaking with areas of darkening and loss to the plating, particularly in the field beside the face, exposing the darker base metal beneath and giving the piece an aged, contrasting surface. The oak board is solid with light surface wear and handling marks, and the reverse easel strut and hanging ring are present and functional. There is no significant denting to the relief and no loss to the portrait itself.

For the collector, portrait images of Kaiser Wilhelm II are central to the collecting of Imperial German personality and patriotic material, and a repoussé plaque showing him in the eagle-crested parade dress of the Gardes du Corps is both a handsome display piece and a document of the uniform culture of his reign. This example, mounted on oak and ready to stand or hang, will appeal to the collector of Imperial German royalty and personality items, of Guard cavalry and uniform history, and of the household patriotic material of the Kaiserreich. The honest wear to the silvering gives it the character of a genuine period-displayed piece rather than a modern reproduction.