Woman visiting the museum accidentally ended up solving a 120-year-old mystery about a Queen
Andreane Rellou used her knowledge in fashion history to crack the mystery
With a keen interest in research and solving mysteries, actor and screenwriter Andreane Rellou (@andreanerellou) visited the Brighton Museum with her sister on March 24, 2024. She saw the Fabergé items found by Antiques Roadshow expert Geoffrey Munn in the museum's back storage. Curators had struggled to identify the two women in the frames and asked for the visitor's help. When she got home, Rellou dove into research right away. She identified the first woman within 4 hours. By July 26, 2024, she solved a 120-year-old mystery. Her July 26, 2026, video recalling the story, received 131,000 views, 11,000 likes, and 152 comments.
An interest in fashion history
What drew Rellou's interest to the Brighton Museum was Edward Burne-Jones' exhibition. It was her first time visiting with her sister, but the two unidentified women in the Fabergé frames caught her eye. When she saw the museum needed help, she knew she had to get to the bottom of the mystery. Rellou's interest in fashion history greatly helped in identifying the first woman. She went through several high-profile upper-class weddings of the 1880s and found her. The woman was Marie Perugia/Marie de Rothschild, the wife of Leopold de Rothschild. The couple got married in 1881.
A forgotten queen
Identifying the second woman took longer, a few days, Rellou admitted. "I borrowed some forensic techniques I read about on the internet and compared lots of different faces from royalty and the upper class," she said. Finally, she figured out who the second woman in the diamond-shaped frame was: the Queen of Greece, Sophia of Prussia. She was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria and was also the sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. It made her sad that no matter how prominent the two women were, once upon a time, they were forgotten today. It made her happy she could give them back their names.
Rellou's research process
In an interview with Brighton & Hove Museums, Rellou revealed her research technique: "I used my knowledge of historical fashion and hairstyling to try and date the pictures myself. I could tell that the older of the two women was likely in her early 40s, and her clothes and hair placed her in the early Edwardian period." She also added a significant hint she took from the Fabergé frames: "Fabergé frames were very valuable, which showed me that she must have had considerable wealth and social status."
But Rellou did not take full credit for solving the mystery, even after expert curators couldn't figure it out. She said, "My research very much relied on the work of others, so in a way, it feels like a collaborative effort. I just put the dots together."
Modern Enola Holmes
People were extremely impressed by Rellou's detective skills but also questioned how experts couldn't crack the mystery. @ellewalmsley asked, "Did you win a Fabergé egg, though? You deserve one." @scarpeen complimented her, writing, "You're a regular Miss Marple, or even Miss Frianny Fisher."
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