Name of Object:

The crown of king Carol I

Location:

Bucharest, Romania

Holding Institution:

National Museum of Romanian History

 About National Museum of Romanian History, Bucharest

Date of Object:

1881

Author:

Romanian Army Arsenal

Provenance:

Romania

Description:

Three years after obtaining its independence from the Ottoman Empire, Romania was declared a kingdom in March 1881. The coronation of prince Carol of Hohenzollern and his wife, Elisabeth, was settled for 10 May. Although the government wanted expensive and richly adorned crowns to be bought for the sovereigns, the king expressed his wish that his crown was made from the steel of a Turkish cannon captured by the Romanian army during the Independence War (the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877-1878), when Romania was Russia’s ally against the Ottoman Empire. Entirely of steel, the crown was made by the craftsmen working at the Army’s Arsenal. Queen Elisabeth’s crown was a smaller golden replica of the steel one and was made by an Austrian jeweler that had set up a workshop in Bucharest.

Type of Object

Crown

Citation of this web page:

"The crown of king Carol I" in "Sharing History", Museum With No Frontiers, 2026.
https://sharinghistory.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;AWE;rm;44;en

MWNF Working Number: RO 044