Fabergé treasures keep us Russian to auction
Celebrated the world over, these exquisite creations never cease to delight
WILL FABERGé ever stop surprising us? Unlikely. The latest from the workshop of the famed pre-Revolution Russian jeweller is this remarkable little silver rhinoceros “toy”.
A couple of turns of its key and a tiny clockwork motor sends it padding across the table top, its head bobbing and its tail wagging. It cost its new owner £704,750 at Christie’s a couple of weeks ago.
Another similar but long-lost surprise, a bejewelled ivory elephant, was discovered in 2015 in our own royal family’s collection after it had been acquired by George V in 1935.
The latter was once concealed at the centre of the so-called Diamond Trellis Egg, commissioned by Czar Alexander III as a gift for his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna, in 1892.
The famed imperial eggs, created by Fabergé for the Russian royal family between 1885 and 1917, were looted during the Russian Revolution in 1917.
At some point the Diamond Trellis Egg and its elephant surprise became separated. Sadly, its sculptural base, which featured three putti, remains missing.
The Christie’s toy rhinoceros was a gift from the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna to her favourite grandson, Prince Vasili Alexandrovich, in 1914 or 1915. It was made in about 1909 and measured just 7.4cm (2 7/8in) long.
Only three others are thought to exist.
It was subsequently acquired by the father of the present owner from the prince’s descendants and retained both its silver key and silk and velvet-lined cased stamped “Fabergé. St Petersburg, Moscow”.
It was the star lot in the sale of important Imperial treasures, assembled more than 30 years by a Fabergé admirer.
Probably the best-known object in the collection was an exceptional and rare guilloché enamel and gold miniature model of a sedan chair, which sold for £788,750.
Made in around 1899-1903, it was purchased from Fabergé’s St Petersburg shop between 1900 and 1917 by one of its most important clients, rubber magnate Maximilian Othmar Neuscheller (1859-1921).
Mother-of-pearl mimics the silk interior, while etched rock crystal mirrors the diaphanous curtains that would have given the empress privacy as she travelled inside the full sized version.
Only a handful of Fabergé’s miniature pieces of furniture are known, and it is exceptional for one to come to market.
From the same collection, and also acquired from Prince Alexandrovich’s descendants, was a scarlet enamel cigarette case given by Emperor Alexander III to the future Nicholas II, the last tsar, for Christmas in the year of his 25th birthday.
It sold for £68,750, while a rare and exquisitely delicate snowflake brooch designed by Alma Pihl (1888-1976), the only female Fabergé workmaster, sold for £112,500.
Interestingly, she designed Fabergé’s Winter Easter Egg in 1913 and the Mosaic Easter Egg in 1914. Like the Diamond Trellis Egg, the latter is in the Royal Collection, having been purchased by George V in 1933, probably as a gift for Queen Mary’s birthday. He paid £250 for it.
The Fabergé surprise of 2014 was the discovery of the Imperial Third Egg designed for Tsar Alexander III in 1887. Lost since 1922, it turned up in a Mid-West bric-a-brac market by a dealer who made a living buying gold and selling it for its scrap value. He paid $14,000 for it.
It was purchased on behalf of a collector for an undisclosed sum by jewellers Wartski, famously of Llandudno and London. Educated guesses by commentators on the sale have since valued it conservatively around £25 million.
It is believed Fabergé produced just 50 Easter eggs. Ten remain in the Kremlin, eight are still missing.
Peter Carl Fabergé (1846-1920) was born of Huguenot extraction in St Petersburg, where his father, Gustav, ran a silver and jewellery shop.
Peter trained there and subsequently travelled throughout Europe, before taking over the family firm and developing it to become one of the leading businesses in the city.
In 1881, he received the Imperial appointment and the following year was joined by his younger brother, Agathon.
Already the firm’s fame was spreading, while the appearance of the Imperial Easter eggs led to a flood of commissions from rich patrons from throughout Europe.
At the height of his career in the 1900s, Fabergé employed more than 500 designers, modellers, gem cutters, goldsmiths and enamellers in branches in Moscow, Kiev and London.
Peter was forced to flee following the Russian Revolution in 1918. His business was nationalised and he died in exile in Switzerland.
However, hundreds of thousands of lesser works of art from the workshops survived, covering everything from silver dinner and tea services to tiaras and clocks.
Among the most delightful are miniature hardstone sculptures of animals and Russian peasants and charming sprays of imitation flowers made from gemstones, crystal, enamel and gold. The latter stand in vases cut from clear rock crystal and look unnervingly real.
Britain’s rich Edwardians fell on them with eagerness, particularly after it became known that the doomed Romanovs had given Fabergé gifts to our own royal family.
To have a Fabergé cigar lighter, a desk set or a picture frame in the years after the country recovered from the deprivations of the First World War was something every upwardly mobile family aspired to.
The same is true today and it’s not just the preserve of the mega-rich. In recent sales, regional auctioneers have seen such pieces as a 2½-inch tall silver and gilt enamel beaker by Fabergé decorated in colourful enamels with the figure of a man holding a mug, surrounded by stylised flowers.
Its owner, who had used it to store pencils, was surprised when it sold for £8,400.
A small but no less charming Fabergé picture frame – it measured 3 x 2,75 ins – containing a photograph of Queen Mary sold for £14,000, while a gold brooch, set with a diamond coronet on pink enamel, reputedly given by Queen Victoria to one of her staff when the woman retired and left royal service sold for £5,500.
In the same saleroom, a whimsical brooch shaped like a tiny spoon and fork set with pearls by Fabergé’s last chief jeweller Erik Kollin (1836-1901) sold for £2,500.