A History of Fabergé

The house of Fabergé is a famous jewellery firm founded in 1842 in St.  Petersburg, Imperial Russia, by Gustav Faberge, in a basement shop in the capital’s fashionable Bolshaia Morskaia. The addition of the accent may have been an attempt to give the name a more explicitly French character, appealing to the Russian nobility’s francophilia. French was the language of the Russian Court and the urban nobility, and closely associated with luxury goods. Later that year, Gustav married Charlotte Jungstedt, the daughter of Carl Jungstedt, an artist of Danish origin. In 1846, the couple had a son, Peter Carl Fabergé, popularly known as Carl Fabergé.; Gustav was followed by his son Peter Carl Fabergé, until the firm was nationalised by the Bolsheviks in 1918. 

On the right: Photo by RomanovRussia.com

 Rare and Unusual Antique Russian Porcelain Easter Egg painted with Russian medieval style ornaments on a pale turquoise ground the Imperial porcelain factory, St. Petersburg, circa 1910

The firm has been famous  for designing elaborate jewel-encrusted Fabergé eggs for the Russian Tsars and a range of other work of high quality and intricate details. 

ABOVE: 

Peter, the Great Egg, is a jewelled Easter egg made under the supervision of the Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé in 1903, for the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II. Tsar Nicholas presented the egg to his wife, the Czarina Alexandra Fyodorovna. The egg is currently located at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia, in the United States.

Photo: wikipedia.org

Carl Fabergé was educated at the Gymnasium of St Anne’s. This was a fashionable establishment for the sons of the affluent middle classes and the lower echelons of the nobility, providing an indication of the success of his father’s business. 

The Dowager (or Imperial Pelican) Fabergé egg, is a jewelled Easter egg made under the supervision of the Russian jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé in 1898. The egg was made for Nicholas II of Russia, who presented it to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna on Easter 1898.

VFMA - Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Photo: wikipedia, user: Francoaq

The Napoleonic egg, sometimes referred to as the Imperial Napoleonic egg, is a Fabergé egg, one of a series of fifty-two jewelled eggs made under the supervision of Peter Carl Fabergé. It was created in 1912 for the last Tsar of Russia Nicholas II as a gift to his mother the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna. The egg is part of the Matilda Geddings Gray collection of Faberge and is currently long term installation at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York. Photo: wikipedia, user Francoaq

Following Carl’s involvement with repairing and restoring objects in the Hermitage Museum, the firm was invited to exhibit at the Pan-Russian Exhibition in Moscow. 

One of the Fabergé pieces displayed at the Pan-Russian Exhibition was a replica of a 4th-century BC gold bangle from the Scythian Treasure in the Hermitage Museum. 

Tsar Alexander III declared that he could not distinguish Fabergé’s work from the original. He ordered that specimens of work by the House of Fabergé should be displayed in the Hermitage Museum as examples of superb contemporary Russian craftsmanship. 

In 1885, the House of Fabergé was bestowed with the coveted title “Goldsmith by special appointment to the Imperial Crown”, beginning an association with the Russian tsars. 

In 1924, Peter Carl’s son Alexander with his half-brother Eugène opened Fabergé et Cie in Paris, making similar jewellery items, but adding the city to their rival firm’s trademark as “FABERGÉ, PARIS”. 

A Fabergé egg is any one of the thousands of jeweled eggs made by the House of Fabergé from 1885 to 1917. 

Most were miniature eggs that were popular gifts at Easter. They were worn on a neck chain either singly or in groups.

The most famous eggs produced by the House were the larger ones made for Alexander III and Nicholas II of Russia; these are often referred to as the ‘Imperial’ Fabergé eggs. Approximately 50 eggs were made; 42 have survived. 

Another two eggs, the Constellation and Karelian Birch eggs, were planned for 1918 but not delivered, as Nicholas II and his family were executed that year, and Nicholas had abdicated the crown the year before.

Seven large eggs were made for the Kelch family of Moscow. The eggs are made of precious metals or hard stones decorated with combinations of enamel and gem stones. The Fabergé egg has become a symbol of luxury, and the eggs are regarded as masterpieces of the jeweler’s art.

‘Fabergé egg’ typically refers to products made by the company before the 1917 Revolution, but use of the Fabergé name has occasionally been disputed, and the trademark has been sold several times since the Fabergé family left Russia after 1917 (see House of Fabergé), so several companies have subsequently retailed egg-related merchandise using the Fabergé name. 

The trademark is currently owned by Fabergé Limited, which also makes egg-themed jewellery.

The first Fabergé egg was crafted for Tsar Alexander III, who decided to give his wife, the Empress Maria Fedorovna, an Easter Egg in 1885, possibly to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their betrothal. It is believed that the Tsar’s inspiration for the piece was an egg owned by the Empress’s aunt, Princess Vilhelmine Marie of Denmark, which had captivated Maria’s imagination in her childhood. 

Known as the Hen Egg, it is crafted from gold. Its opaque white enameled ‘shell’ opens to reveal its first surprise, a matte yellow gold yolk. This in turn opens to reveal a multi-coloured gold hen that also opens. It contained a minute diamond replica of the Imperial Crown from which a small ruby pendant was suspended. Unfortunately, these last two surprises have been lost.

Of the 65 known large Fabergé eggs, 57 have survived to the present day. Ten of the Imperial Easter Eggs are displayed at the Kremlin Armoury Museum, Moscow in Russia. 

Of the 50 known Imperial eggs, 44 have survived. Of the eight lost Imperial eggs, photographs exist of only two, the 1903 Royal Danish, and the 1909 Alexander III Commemorative eggs. 

Only one, 1916’s Order of St. George egg, left Bolshevik Russia with its original recipient, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. The rest remained in Petrograd.

Following the Russian Revolution, the House of Fabergé was nationalized by the Bolsheviks, and the Fabergé family fled to Switzerland, where Peter Carl Fabergé died in 1920. 

The Romanov palaces were ransacked and their treasures moved on order of Vladimir Lenin to the Kremlin Armoury. 

In a bid to acquire more foreign currency, Joseph Stalin had many of the eggs sold in 1927, after their value had been appraised by Agathon Fabergé. 

Between 1930 and 1933, 14 Imperial eggs left Russia. Many of the eggs were sold to Armand Hammer, president of Occidental Petroleum and a personal friend of Lenin, whose father was founder of the United States Communist party, and Emanuel Snowman of the London antique dealers Wartski.

After the collection in the Kremlin Armoury, the largest gathering of Fabergé eggs was assembled by Malcolm Forbes, and displayed in New York City. Totalling nine eggs, and approximately 180 other Fabergé objects, the collection was put up for auction at Sotheby’s in February 2004 by Forbes’ heirs. Before the auction even began the collection was purchased in its entirety by the oligarch Victor Vekselberg for a sum estimated between $90 and $120 million.

In 1989, as part of the San Diego Arts Festival, 26 Faberge eggs were loaned for display at the San Diego Museum of Art, the largest exhibition of Faberge eggs anywhere since the Russian Revolution. 

In November 2007, a Fabergé clock, named by Christie’s auction house the Rothschild egg, sold at auction for £8.9 million (including commission). The price achieved by the egg set three auction records: it is the most expensive timepiece, Russian object and Fabergé object ever sold at auction, surpassing the $9.6 million sale of the 1913 Winter egg in 2002.

After the fall of the Empire, a huge number of objects in precious metals were melted down to produce the first Soviet coinage. The bullion used to strike tens of millions of silver and gold coins between 1921 and 1924 had its primary source in confiscated silver and gold. This explains the rarity of gold and silver wares of the period on the market today in general, and of larger and heavier pieces in particular.

An unknown number of fine objects from private collections ended up in state museums. Almost everything of value, ranging from jewelry to books, went to the state vaults. The 1917 Revolution and the Civil War almost completely eradicated those items which displayed Imperial insignia, ciphers, and portraits of members of the Imperial family. In 1920’s and early 1930’s, the state, desperate for cash, organized a number of auctions at which porcelain, glass, bronze, carpets, books, and furniture from the Imperial palaces were sold to general public. For this reason, some pieces which belonged to the Imperial family are still available today.

Since 1998, Romanov Russia Ltd sold thousands of high-end Russian Imperial antiques and Faberge objects to private collectors, investors, art funds, and museums (including the Metropolitan in NY).

Text: Sandra Kemppainen, wikipedia.org; 

Photos: RomanovRussia.com, wikipedia.org