£1m Fabergé f lower revealed as Roadshow’s most expensive item
FOR months its history was a closely guarded secret, known only to the programme’s top producers.
But now the Antiques Roadshow’s most valuable item ever has been revealed – as a delicate £1million Fabergé flower owned by an Army regiment.
The detailed flower, just under 6in high, is one of only 80 surviving pieces of its kind. It was taken to a BBC filming event near Birmingham by two soldiers in June.
Simon Shaw, the show’s executive producer, described it as ‘one of the most significant jewellery finds in 40 years’ of the programme, with suggestions it may be worth more than £1million.
It features a delicate pear blossom sprig in a crystal vase with ‘QOWH South Africa 1900’ engraved across it.
Ahead of the show’s anniversary special, the BBC has been tight-lipped about the find. But after rumours of the piece circulated around the art world, its origins were finally revealed by a Fabergé expert.
Tatiana Fabergé, the Swiss- based great-granddaughter of Peter Fabergé, said the piece was a gift from an aristocrat to a British regiment.
She said: ‘In the book Fabergé Flowers there is the exact same flower which is in the Queen’s Own Warwickshire and Worcestershire Yeomanry Charitable Trust.’
She said it was part of a botanical study created by Fabergé in Imperial Russia.
Society aristocrat Georgina Ward, Countess of Dudley, presented the flower to the Queen’s Own Worcestershire Hussars (QOWH) in the early 1900s. It was intended to be a regimental trophy for their service in the Boer War, and has stayed in the Army ever since. In 1956, the regiment was amalgamated with the Warwickshire Yeomanry to form the Queen’s Own Warwickshire and Worcestershire Yeomanry.
The countess’s late husband had been the regiment’s commanding officer, and she would give sprigs of pear blossom to the soldiers for good luck.
Fabergé said: ‘Only about 80 of Fabergé’s botanical studies are known to have survived. We can reveal more about the piece taken to the Antiques Roadshow. Its engraved gold stem is placed in a rock crystal vase, carved so it appears to be half full of water. The six flowers of blossom are gold with white enamel and shades of pale pink.
‘Their stamens are oxidised silver with a diamond at the centre, while the leaves are carved nephrite.’
The episode featuring the flower is due to be screened this autumn.