The Crown Princess gave a splendid fancy dress ball at the New Palace in February, 1874. To some who were present it recalled the costume ball given by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Buckingham Palace nearly thirty years before. The Crown Princess, who was devoted to Italy and to Italian art, decided that the entertainment should be known as the Venetian Fête. She herself wore a replica of the dress in which Leonora Conzaga was painted by Titian. Later there was painted by von Angeli a portrait of the Crown Princess in this dress.
The Crown Prince and Princess spent the spring of 1875 in Italy, including a long stay in Venice. There they entertained the painter Anton von Werner, who has left an enthusiastic account of their visit.
He records that the Princess drew and painted with real industry, now sketching the unequalled treasures of the past, now studying the effects of light or shade on the canals or in the square of St. Mark’s. The painter was astonished, not only at the Princess’s powers of technique, but also at her artistic sympathy and feeling. She seemed to know intuitively what would make a fine sketch. On the evening of her departure, he says, this artist Princess carried away with her an unforgettable picture. The Grand Canal was covered with a fleet of gondolas, each lighted with torches, while the full moon shed her radiance over the noble palaces and the Rialto Bridge.
Von Werner adds that the Princess, in spite of the many claims on her time, had since that time persevered in all her artistic studies, and he particularly mentions von Angeli, Wilberg, Lutteroth and Albert Hertel, as painters who helped and inspired her. She did life-sized portraits of her children, Prince William and the Hereditary Princess of Saxe-Meiningen, in addition to numerous pencil and water-colour sketches of really remarkable artistic merit.
In the October of that year the Crown Prince, in a long letter to his old friend, Prince Charles of Roumania, mentions that the Princess is more industrious and successful than ever in painting and drawing, and does marvels in the way of portraits. He also describes how his wife led her Hussar regiment past the King. She did it, he says, magnificently, and looked extremely well in her simple yet becoming uniform.
The Crown Princess was of great assistance to her husband in his scheme of adding a Royal Mausoleum to the Berlin Cathedral, which should be a kind of Pantheon of the House of Hohenzollern. There were to be statues of all the Electoral Princes and Kings, with inscriptions relating the history and exploits of each. This involved a great deal of historical research, of which the Princess took her share, as also in the composition of the more detailed historical memoirs or character sketches of his ancestors to which the Crown Prince also devoted himself.
A visit to Scheveningen in 1876 enabled the Crown Princess to study, much to her delight, the historical and artistic treasures of the old cities of Holland.
It will be remembered that the Crown Princess, many years before, had had scruples about her husband’s association with Freemasonry. She was perhaps reassured by a speech which he delivered in July, 1876, when Prince Frederick of the Netherlands celebrated his sixtieth anniversary as Grand Master. Freemasonry, he declared, aimed at love, freedom, and tolerance, without regard to national divisions, and he hoped it might be victorious in the struggle for intellect and liberty. This speech is particularly interesting because, only two years before, the Crown Prince had resigned his office in Grand Lodge in Berlin owing to the opposition he encountered in striving to carry out certain reforms in the craft.
1877 was an eventful year in the Prussian Imperial family. In February, Prince William received his commission in the Foot Guards; Princess Charlotte was betrothed to the Hereditary Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Meiningen; and Prince Henry made his formal entry into the Navy.
In April of this year it became known that Bismarck had made one of his not infrequent threats to resign, and Bucher wrote to Busch to tell him the news: “It is not a question of leave of absence,” he said, “but a peremptory demand to be allowed to retire. The reason: Augusta, who influences her aging consort, and conspires with Victoria (the Crown Princess).”