Editing Faber-Castell (section)

== Family ==
The immensely wealthy [[Lothar Faber]] had been ennobled in 1861 and made Baron von Faber in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1881 but,<ref name=hist /><ref name="econ">http://www.economist.com/node/8770415/print?story_id=8770415 At the Sharp End </ref> the sons of his only son Wilhelm (1851–1893) (by his wife Bertha Faber {1856-1940}, daughter of Lothar's younger brother, Eberhard {1822-1879}, who had founded the New York branch of the company) having died young, a  marriage for his granddaughter and heiress Ottilie was arranged with a scion of one of Germany's formerly ruling comital dynasties. Yet in the conservative German Empire of ''fin-de-siècle'' Europe, the marriage of a Faber into a family of the high nobility was regarded as too bold a leap upward socially. A morganatic marriage would have been required, and the Faber pencil works could not have remained in the hands of their descendants because trafficking in commerce was still considered an act of social derogation among members of the ''Hochadel''.

[[File:FCSchloss.jpg|thumb|''Faber Castle'' at [[Stein, Bavaria|Stein]] near [[Nuremberg]]]]
To resolve this dilemma, the chosen groom, Count Alexander Friedrich Lothar [[Counts of Castell#Castell-Rüdenhausen line|von Castell-Rüdenhausen]] (1866–1928) renounced his birth rank prior to the marriage. The [[Counts of Castell|Castell family]] had been Imperial counts in [[Franconia]], known since the 11th century. When the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved under pressure from Napoleon I in 1806, the Castell lands were annexed by the Kingdom of Bavaria. Although deprived of sovereignty, in 1815 the Castells were mediatized, their rank with the reigning dynasties of Europe being formally recognized,<ref name="gotha">Almanach de Gotha. 1910. Perthes, p. 107, 109, 120–1. [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k346900.pleinepage.r=almanach+de+gotha.f134.langFR Deuxième Partie].</ref> and family would be granted the hereditary title of Prince.<ref name="gotha" /> Count Alexander, a younger son of the first prince, married the pencil heiress, Baroness Ottilie von Faber (1877–1944), in 1898.<ref name="gotha" /> He was granted the new hereditary title of [[Counts of Castell#Faber-Castell sub-line|Count von Faber-Castell]] by Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria for the descendants of their marriage.<ref name="gotha" /><ref name="huberty">L'Allemagne Dynastique, Tome VI Huberty, Michel; Giraud, Alain; Magdelaine, F.; ISBN 2-901138-06-3</ref> Although Alexander and Ottilie divorced in 1918, the Faber business trust had transferred headship of the company to Alexander,<ref name=hist /> who even kept the Fabers' renovated palace at Stein (which would be commandeered to billet journalists during the Nuremberg trials, including Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck).<ref name=schloss>Faber-Castell International. [http://www.faber-castell.de/en-DE/company/fc-experience The Faber-Castell Castle]</ref>

In 1927 Alexander resumed his original name for himself, his second wife (born a countess, Margit Zedtwitz von Moravan und Duppau, 1886–1973), and their son, Count Radulf (1922–2004).<ref name="huberty" /> His issue by the first marriage had never been considered dynasts of the House of Castell, but they inherited the vast Faber fortune and continue to include ''Castell'' in their name with the comital title.<ref name="huberty" />

Alexander and Ottilie's only son, Count Roland Lothar Wolfgang Christian Ernst Wilhelm von Faber-Castell (1905–78), inherited headship of the Faber-Castell companies from his parents.<ref name=hist /> By his second marriage in 1938 to Katharina Sprecher von Bernegg (1917–94), Roland was the father of the former head of the family, his third son, Count Anton-Wolfgang Lothar Andreas von Faber-Castell. Anton-Wolfgang was born in Bamberg 7 June 1941, was married (briefly) in Las Vegas on 16 June 1986 to Carla Mathilde Lamesch — mother of his only son, Count Charles Alexander von Faber-Castell, who was born in Zürich 20 June 1980 — and he wed secondly, at Stein on 12 December 1987, Mary Hogan (b. 1951), by whom he has three daughters (Katharina, and the twins Sarah and Victoria).<ref name="econ" /> He led the company from 1978 until his death on January 21, 2016.<ref name=CEO>CEO [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-22/anton-wolfgang-von-faber-castell-german-pencil-heir-dies-at-74 Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber-Castell]</ref>

Anton-Wolfgang's niece, Countess Floria-Franziska von Faber-Castell (b. 1974) was married at Kronberg on 17 May 2003 in a much-publicised wedding attended by members of Europe's reigning families, to Donatus, Hereditary Prince of Hesse, a great-grandson of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and a grand-nephew of Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark, sister of the British prince consort, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Floria is a daughter of Hubertus (1937–71), second son of Roland. Various branches of the Faber-Castell family still flourish, but in the past the Faber and Faber-Castell corporate holdings have usually passed to the eldest male of the patrilineage.<ref name=hist />