€68.00
Figure to assemble and paint
Ref.: 03 – GCC
Weight: 205 grs.
Material: White metal
Number of Pieces: 14
History:
CAVALRY TRUMPET. FULL DRESS UNIFORM – 1879.
Alfonso XII, son of Isabel II, was King of Spain between 1874 and 1885. The start of his reign marked the end of the First Republic and the beginning of the period known as the Restoration. Following his untimely death at the age of twenty-seven, a victim of tuberculosis, he was succeeded to the throne by his posthumous son, Alfonso XIII, whose minority was overseen by the regency of his mother, the Queen Dowager María Cristina, the second wife of his father Alfonso XII.
He married his cousin María de las Mercedes of Orléans on 23 March 1878. However, the queen died shortly afterwards. Doctors diagnosed her with ‘essential toxic fever’ so as not to use the word ‘typhus’. She died on 26 June 1878, two days after her 18th birthday.
In October of that year, the king was the target of an assassination attempt on Calle Mayor in Madrid, from which he emerged unscathed, but which set in motion plans for a new marriage to secure the dynasty. The chosen bride was to be the twenty-one-year-old Austrian Archduchess María Cristina of Habsburg-Lorraine, a Catholic and niece of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, although the engagement could not be formalised until the year of official mourning had ended.
On 29 November 1879, the wedding ceremony took place at the Basilica of Our Lady of Atocha. We have a record of the royal procession thanks to a collection of 64 chromolithographs drawn and painted by Vicente Sabater, born in Barcelona in 1835. In one of them, we can see a section of the Civil Guard following the royal carriage. An image of one of the buglers was reproduced by José María Bueno in his book: *LA GUARDIA CIVIL. Its history, organisation and uniforms*. Until 1905, the cavalry buglers of the Civil Guard wore red tunics with blue insignia for ceremonial occasions – that is, with the colours reversed compared to those of the guards.
As for headgear, the black felt tricorn hat was retained, trimmed with white cotton braid, a thread loop, a red cockade and a black patent leather chin strap; the rubber cover for the everyday uniform was the same colour.
In the illustrations, the 1832-model cavalry sabre appears to be hanging from the belt. Examples of this model are still in existence today, dated in Toledo in 1875.
In 1891, the modification to the 1880 cavalry sabre was adopted, following the Royal Order of 20 July 1888. This model, which was scarcely used by the Civil Guard, was replaced by the Royal Order of 8 July 1895, intended for mounted units and, consequently, also for the Civil Guard.
