Fabulous Fabergé
Renowned for its iconic bejeweled imperial Easter eggs, its 170 years history spans royalty and romance, to intrigue and drama. Now returned to its former splendour, Fabergé is back at its glittering best, creating covetable objets d’art and investment jewellery. By Julie Burns
E
very picture tells a story, they say. Perhaps the same can be said of extraordinary works of art. T ere’s certainly a tale to tell behind the
world-famous Fabergé egg. It conjures lavish days of Russian royalty through the Russian Revolution, and revolt from American commercialism, before turning full circle to fl ourish once more. It’s a tale as extraordinary as each of the 50 eggs created, of which 42 survive.
Exactly a century ago, the 1913 Winter Egg – the most expensive Fabergé egg ever – was produced. Latest in a series created by Peter Carl Fabergé, legendary artist-goldsmith- jeweller to the Russian Imperial Court, it cost today’s equivalent of £1.87 million. Carved of rock crystal, platinum ornamented and set with 3,246 diamonds, the egg sold at Christies in New York in 2002 for US $9.6 million. Annually crafted for the Imperial family’s Easter celebrations between1885 to1916, the Eggs are much more than royal baubles. Some of the last great commissions of objets d’art, they capture a poignant passage of time. Fabergé’s elegant masterpieces serve to illuminate the rise and the fall of the French art-loving Romanov dynasty. In the Russian Orthodox Church, Easter
was all-important. A tradition was to take eggs to church for blessing, before off ering to friends and family. In St Petersburg’s high society, precious bejewelled Easter gifts became the custom. T is led to Tsar Alexander II to commission Fabergé to create a covetable Easter egg – with surprise inside - for the Empress Alexandra. Apprenticed as a boy to his own goldsmith
father, Fabergé was an exceptional artistic and well-travelled talent, infl uenced by the ravishing Renaissance and Baroque treasures
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in the famous Green Vaults of Dresden to the Medici treasures of Florence. He fast became a master craftsman, repairing and restoring treasures in the prestigious Hermitage Museum. His own prize pieces went on display – as viewed by Tsar Alexander III, father of Alexander II - at the Pan-Russian Exhibition in Moscow. Fabergé achieved international prominence thanks to the patronage of the Russian Tsars and in eff ect, was destined to end alongside them. In 1917, the Russian Revolution brought the Romanov dynasty crashing down and with it, the House of Fabergé. In the wake of seizure by the Bolsheviks, Peter Carl Fabergé and family fl ed for their lives. Carl survived escape to Latvia and onto Germany, but died soon after, in Switzerland, in 1920. Two of his sons, Alexander and Eugene, were able to reunite in 1924, to open Fabergé et Cie in Paris. T ere, they traded in, and restored, House of Fabergé objects, until 2001. In 1984, Fabergé et Cie lost their rights to use the trademark Fabergé for jewellery in a spectacular lawsuit. It was the latest business misfortune to hit the Fabergé family. From 1951, they lost the right to produce and market designs under the Fabergé name. To their dismay, in 1945, they had found out their name was being used to sell perfumes without
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