Orders of Bavaria, Military Order of Max Joseph and Civil Merit, Plate X, 1844

This is an original antique wood engraving, colored by hand, showing insignia of the Kingdom of Bavaria. At the upper left (8) is a breast star with a white cross edged in gold, ball tipped arms and a blue center, laid on silver rays. Below it hangs a crowned badge (9), a white enameled cross with gold rays between the arms and a blue medallion bearing the monogram MJK, on a black ribbon edged in white and light blue; a small blue disk (10) gives its reverse. These are the insignia of the Military Order of Max Joseph. On the right a silver star (12) has a green wreath around a red ring and a center of the blue and white Bavarian lozenges under a crown, and the crowned badge below it (13) is a white eight pointed cross in an oak wreath with a profile head of the king, on a light blue ribbon edged in white, with its reverse (14). These belong to the Civil Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown. Along the foot runs part of a gold collar (11): a crowned tablet lettered TIA between red sprays, a link of blue lozenges, and two lions holding swords beside a column topped by an orb and cross.

The running head reads "BAVIÈRE." (Bavaria) and the plate number "X.". Each piece carries a small figure, 8 to 14. The reverse disk 10 reads "VIRTUS PRO PATRIA" (virtue for the fatherland); the badge 13 carries a partly miscut Latin legend naming Max Joseph as king of Bavaria around the portrait, and its reverse 14 "VIRTUS ET HONOR" (virtue and honor), a legend also seen on the star 12.

The plate comes from Ordres de Chevalerie et Marques d'Honneur, published by Auguste Wahlen and issued in Brussels by the Librairie Historique-Artistique, rue de Schaerbeek, 12, in 1844. Auguste Wahlen was the pen name of the Belgian writer Jean-François-Nicolas Loumyer (1801 to 1875), whose title page lists his own knighthoods in orders of Prussia, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Hanover, Greece, the Roman States, Saxe-Coburg and Brazil.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.