The cypher to the underside of the present table is that of Queen Alexandra, Consort of King Edward VII (1844-1925). A report from the Yorkshire Evening Post, 24 November, 1925, noted that, as a girl, Princess Alexandra determined to have a cipher of her own and decided upon a pair of crossed hairpins, thus forming the initial letters of her name, Alice Alexandra.
The daughter of Christian IX of Denmark, Alexandra moved from Copenhagen to England upon her marriage to Prince Albert Edward in 1863. By the end of the following year her father was crowned King of Denmark and her brother King of Greece. Alexandra’s sister, Dagmar (later Marie Fedorovna), soon thereafter married the future Tsar Alexander III in 1866, thus weaving the family into the intricate webs of the Royal courts throughout Europe. By all accounts the sisters maintained a close relationship despite the physical distance their respective marriages put between them.
Upon the death of their father in 1907, Alexandra (now Queen-Empress consort following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901) and the widowed Dowager Empress of Russia together purchased Hvidøre, a villa north of Copenhagen which was to serve as a private summer home and maintain link to their ancestral land. The house later served as the primarily residue to Marie Feorovna upon her exile following the Russian Revolution, and was sold two years after her death in 1928. Interestingly, the present lot was acquired by the present owner in Denmark and it is conceivable that the table was brought from England to Hvidøre by Queen Alexandra.