Fabergé: Romanovs to Royalty

with you so my talk today will focus on the acquisition of one of the largest and most important collections of works by the russian master goldsmith and jeweler carl faberge and this collection is one of the most famous and significant of the decorative arts collection within the royal collection which as michael said i'm responsible for the numbers between 850 and 900 pieces the precise number not yet finally determined as in the course of recent research i've identified new pieces within the collection but i've also discounted others which had previously been mis attributed while the collection may not no longer be the largest uh of faberge in existence it is regarded as exceptional in two ways firstly in its extraordinary diversity being representative of every type of object which the faberge workshops produced from relatively ordinary table silver to the most elaborate jeweled easter eggs and secondly and perhaps most importantly because of the manner in which the collection was formed the collection really is the product of five successive generations of royal collecting and accumulation from the reign of queen victoria to her majesty queen elizabeth ii moreover it is unique in being the only extant collection to have been formed for the most part prior to the russian revolution of 1917 making it comparable with only uh only with the collections of the russian imperial family themselves which of course after the revolution were confiscated and dispersed by 1887 queen victoria had succeeded in the ambition she had shared with prince albert her consort to marry her children and her grandchildren into the most significant royal and princely houses of europe her dynastic ambition realized she chose the danish artist lawrence reinier tucson to paint three generations of her family in the green drawing room at windsor castle to mark her golden jubilee which took place that year and we see that remarkable group portrait here in front of us and even though the prince consort had sadly died many years earlier you can see to the right of the screen a bronze bust on the chimney piece representing her dearly beloved husband eleven years later in october 1896 she received her favorite granddaughter empress alexandra fierovna born princess alex of hesse and by rhine consort of the last emperor of russia nicholas ii at balmoral castle where they stayed for a period of 10 days this photograph is one of many recorded during that visit and it also shows the future edward vii who was the emperor's uncle and of course nicholas and alexandra's first child grand duchess olga queen victoria by this date had already made purchases with the faberge firm and her account ledgers refer to payments made in 1895 and then again in 1897 for broaches etc and we believe that these were probably in connection with her diamond jubilee of of 1897 and for that highly significant occasion nicholas ii and alexandra commissioned carl faberge to make a bridge for the queen and it takes the form of a silver and gold heart set with brilliant diamonds surmounted by a cabochon sapphire and with two further sapphires suspended from diamond pompeiil or chains below the heart encloses a diamond-set slavonic characters for the number 60 of course for the 60 years of the diamond jubilee the brooch cost 1055 rubles quite a substantial sum and the queen clearly delighted with it chose to wear it for the official celebrations of her diamond jubilee on the 23rd of june 1897 and in a telegram offering their congratulations on her jubilee the emperor and empress wrote to the queen touched that you wore our present. for christmas the previous year they had also sent another gift of faberge which the queen also chose to deploy on the occasion of her jubilee and here you can see this silver guilt and gyosha enameled notebook case inscribed on the top right by the couple themselves and dedicated by queen victoria herself on the slide below and inside every single page is signed by all of the crowned heads of europe and the wider world that attended the jubilee celebrations it's not really within the scope of this lecture today to give a very detailed account of carl faberge's career or indeed the history of the firm both of which are of course extremely well documented and very widely published but it is important to note the main influences on his work which ultimately led to imperial and royal patronage and made him the most successful russian goldsmith and jeweller of the 19th and 20th century carl's father gustav faberge was born in 1814 and he became a master goldsmith in 1841 having been apprenticed to johann cable and he opened a workshop in some petersburg in the same year in 1860 he moved his family including his son peter carl faberge who had been born in 1846 to dresden and it was here that carl attended a commercial course and became fascinated by the treasures of the green vault notably those made by the famous dinglinger family which showed technical virtuosity and complexity and most importantly combined metalwork enameling and the use of precious and semi-precious stones often in equal measure so that no one element detracted from the other faberge was also influenced by the automata that he saw there which were particularly well represented in the collections of the garunas gervalt in completion of his training he traveled to frankfurt where he was apprenticed to the jeweler friedman and he also visited florence and paris although those visits are not particularly well documented he returned to saint petersburg in 1817 as a fully fledged craftsman to take over the his father's business in 1882 faberge and his craftsman in particular the goldsmith eric collin who was faberge's first hedwig master were inspired to make reproductions of the famous kirch scythian antiquities and these were exhibited at the pan russian exhibition in moscow in 1882 and you can see on the top right of the screen a reproduction image of some of the pieces that were made contemporary accounts of that exhibition record that faberge's work was extremely highly regarded and the pieces exhibited were immediately recognized as obje da standing apart from the other more mass-produced style of jewelry submitted by other russian exhibitors the popular russian journal neva dedicated an article to these pieces um and the resulting display went on to attract the attention of the visiting emperor alexander the third and his consort maria fierovna who herself purchased made her first purchase of faberge in the form of a cuffed pair of cufflinks in the shape of cicadas the public and imperial recognition of his gold jewelry marked a major turning point in the firm's history and three years later on the first of may 1885 carl faberge was granted the official title of supplier to the imperial court with the right to bear the imperial coat of arms uh on his shop and also within the stamped boxes that he retailed his products in the duality of patronage and collecting and one could also argue the stratospheric success which the firm began to enjoy was largely attributable to two danish princesses alexandra that we see on the left of the screen the consort of the future king edward vii whom she married in 1863 and dagmar the consort of the future emperor alexander iii who took the name marie fierovna on her marriage in 1866 and we see her in this beautiful frame on the right of the screen both were daughters of christine ix and queen louise of denmark and their adoration of faberge's work would help to transform his business into a nationwide enterprise with branches in moscow kiev and odessa and ultimately into an international endeavor with the opening of the london branch from which sales trips were made to the continent in order to serve the demands of european royalty and even as far afield as to the royal family in thailand the danish homeland of the two sisters was however never far from faberge's mind and was often referenced in the commissions he undertook for both the russian imperial family and the british royal family in 1885 alexander iii commissioned the first of the famous series of 50 imperial easter eggs known as the first hen egg it is traditionally connected with an 18th century egg in the danish royal collection which is itself part of a mid 18th century tradition of similar objects of which at least two other examples are known the highest order of chivalry in denmark the order of the elephant and you see the badge of that order on the top right of the screen was also incorporated into an imperial egg becoming the surprise the object hidden inside the egg designed to delight the empress on easter day when she opened up and received her wonderful egg and it became the surprise for the 1892 diamond trellis imperial easter egg and we see the surprise on the bottom of the screen beneath the badge of the order and when we look at these two we see that unlike the badge of the order faberge's version is actually made in ivory and it's also an automaton and you can just see that the sections of the legs are separate components and also that the um underneath you can just glimpse underneath the feet that um oh sorry that was an accident apologies oh that's happened there we go um and you can just see just glimpse underneath the back foot that um there's a little gold wheel and these are ratcheted and it's this that enables the automaton to move along when it's uh wound and also it moves its head up and down much in the manner of an actual elephant and this surprise was acquired by king george v and queen mary in 1935 who were unaware at that time of its origin and it was quietly sitting minding its own business on a shelf in a display cabinet in buckingham palace without having been moved ever since its acquisition until i came along a few years later and identified it as the missing faberge surprise for the imperial diamond trellis egg and it hadn't been seen in public since 1929 so that's almost 90 years subsequently having been introduced to faberge's work by her sister mary fiorovna queen alexandra um began to uh formulate her own collection and the pieces she acquired were mainly for in the form of gifts exchanged for anniversaries for birthdays for easter and for christmas and she began to develop quite a refined taste for the kinds of pieces that she liked according to the manager of the london branch of the firm henry charles bainbridge queen alexandra preferred pieces in the more modest price bracket um with a strict limit of 50 pounds and these included jewelled enameled and hard stone flowers of which she collected the majority of those um 26 examples which are now in the royal collection and on the left of the screen you can see this wonderful um gold nephrite and enameled chrysanthemum and this in fact was a gift to queen alexandra from the councillor at the russian embassy stanislas poklovsky cuisine and this was purchased at a cost price of 117 pounds well exceeding the price limit that had been set but demonstrating of course the technical ingenuity required to make the flowers which of course consequently made them incredibly uh expensive um and these flowers were really inspired by jeweled bouquets which had been made by the court jeweller jeremy poisier and others and also by chinese hearthstone carvings of flowers that were to be found in the hermitage collection but they're also an example of how faberge sought really to push the boundaries of traditional russian hardstone carving reducing the the scale and using varieties of stones to replicate fresh and decayed berries for example leaves as we see here with these very finely carved nephrite elements as well as the tom play effect of water refracted through glass which is what we believe we see when we look at this piece but in reality uh the vas is formed of a solid piece of carved and polished rock crystal designed to look as though it is in fact water in a glass vase queen alexandra also began what is now the largest collection of carved hearthstone animals by the faberge firm and it numbers in excess of 350 three times as large in fact as the collection formed by her sister in russia the animals drew on numerous sources including netsuke of which carl fabia owned a considerable collection and we can see in this uh example queen alexandra's door mouse so called um the kind of density of the carving is very very um reminiscent of that style of carving that we see in japanese nets netsuke frames with portrait miniatures and photographs were also in great demand by faberge's clientele largely of course due to the rise in the popularity of photography the private apartments of queen alexandra which we'll see a little later on groaned with photographs of family and she was indeed an accomplished amateur photographer herself but she also received numerous gifts of faberge frames and this particular example with a miniature is thought to have been a gift marking the silver jubilee of her parents christian ix and queen louise exquisitely enameled boxes and frames of gold or hard stones set with seed pearls and diamonds and enamel also featured views of famous monuments and palaces in russia and faberge decided to extend that range of boxes and frames from the russian views to encompass those of significance to the british royal family and some of these were acquired by queen alexandra and by edward vii and then later by king george v and queen mary and they included as you can see here views of their beloved uh sandringham house in norfolk of famous monuments the houses of parliament um and so on the right-hand side you also see a view of what was known as queen alexandra's dairy on the norfolk estate and you see a photograph of it below and then in the center a bomboniere the two sides of a bombonia one showing balmoral castle in scotland and windsor castle on the other side such was the association with sandringham that this was where in fact uh the majority of queen alexandra's collection was kept mainly into very large display cases in the drawing room which was specially lit by electric lights every evening to show the collection off to the best advantage and although this photograph um of the drawing room at sandringham house is taken a little bit later um nine years after queen alexandra's death actually in 1930 she died in 1925. um the the room has changed very little and on the right hand side of the screen you can just see a glass fronted uh cabinet with glass shelves and there are two of those to the right and they are the ones that contained her collection prior to acceding to the throne edward vii and queen alexandra as prince and princess of wales um resided at marlborough house and it was here um that photographs in an album captioned by the queen herself revealed the way uh in which while some pieces were kept in vitrines others were dotted around the room and this is another image from that same album this actually is of queen alexandra's dressing room at sandringham house and you can just see the density of objects and books and all sorts of things around and then when we look at this image again a sort of similar approach at the london residence marlborough house and this in fact shows queen alexandra in her sitting room and on the table to the left which i show an enlarged image of on the right you can just make out a whole array of faberge animals but in fact dotted in amongst them right in the center of the image you can just make out uh this wonderful bow knight and gold faberge clock so showing that she liked to mix and match the objects um all around the patronage of the queen and as we shall soon see of the king himself was one of the major factors which really influenced carl faberge to open the only foreign outpost of his business in london it was a retail business only there were no workshops and it opened first at burner's hotel in 1903 it moved to portman house in dover street in 1904 it moved to 48 dober street in 1906 and then finally from 1911 until its closure in 1915 it was situated at the very prestigious address of 173 new bond street the branch was managed from 1907 by henry charles bainbridge and initially this was jointly with nicholas faberge one of carl's sons and the branch branch was regularly visited by um the king and queen and many members of the royal family either to purchase pieces for themselves or as gifts for one another and alongside this very famous photograph of george v with his cousin uh nicholas ii his first cousin who where they look so alike um this is a quote from bainbridge's autobiography and he sums up there all the amazing noble and royal families who would come to visit the branch on a regular basis like queen alexandra king edward vii was a fervent admirer of faberge's work and acquired a really considerable collection himself through a variety of different means for example in 1908 he made a state visit to russia to visit his nephew emperor nicholas ii and this visit and rather unusually was actually conducted a float as it was considered far too dangerous for the king to set foot on russian soil at this particular time and so with their two families in tow um they bobbed up and down uh between the royal yacht return uh sorry the royal yacht victorian albert and the imperial yachts standard and polish star and on this occasion the emperor presented the king with an official gift made by the faberge firm this very large enameled and gem set nephrite bowl its commissioning as a diplomatic gift through the imperial cabinet was nothing new for faberge as he regularly made a variety of gifts to be given in the name of the emperor edward vii also acquired pieces which were deeply connected to his personal interests from cigar cases and lighters to frames and other objects in uh many of which were enameled in his own the royal racing colors as you see um in the red and blue striped enamel frame on the left and he also commissioned a sculpture of his most successful racehorse persimmon who's likewise depicted in the photograph frame the rise of cigarette and cigar smoking superseded that of snuff-taking from the end of the 19th century and faberge and consummate retail style responded accordingly by producing some of the most sumptuously decorated and elegant accessories of which the king was to form a very large collection and here we have two really wonderful examples in 1903 his sister-in-law marie fierrovner commissioned this beautiful two-color gold cigarette case um with the monogram of the king and queen ian a edward and alexandra crowned in diamonds as a 40th wedding anniversary present and a few years later in 1908 the case on the right of the screen was given to the king by his mistress mrs george keppel who's actually seated in front of the king in the photograph taken at sandringham house there on the top right of the screen and this is probably one of the most sumptuous and elegant pieces made by the firm particularly in the um wonderfully uh um exuberant and highly successful gyosha enameling for which of course the faberge firm was renowned and it also features as you can see this incredibly elegant and very sinuous diamond set snake which continues over the other side of the case as well and of course the um the symbol of the snake biting its tail is in fact the symbol of everlasting love and of course what we can see from this case in contrast to the one on the left of the screen is it's incredibly uh very much in the arc nouveau style and rather interestingly we don't see a huge amount of of evidence of this style in faberge's work and so much so that actually in 1900 when he exhibited at the exposition universal in paris um with many of his pieces being in the kind of neoclassical revival style um he was actually quite uh quite criticized for the lack of our nouveau pieces which of course had then come to the forefront in european stylistic terms and um he then began to after that experiment increasingly with objects in uh in what was known in russia as the steel modern um and that also of course found favor with alexandre fyadorovna one of clearly his most important imperial clients and this case had a rather fascinating history because after um the king died queen alexandra gave it back to mrs keppel as a memento uh in 1910 but in turn some more than 20 years later mrs keppel decided to return it and she gave it to queen mary um thereby ensuring that it would actually remain in the royal collection where of course it is still to this day gifts and purchases as i've described were obviously one means of accumulation um for the king but in 1907 he decided to place the only documented uh commission direct royal commission with the faberge firm to make portrait models of the favorite dogs and racehorses kept on the estate at sandringham and this was designed to be a present for queen alexandra and what turned out was that this became the largest commission um ever ordered through the london firm and uh clearly it was quite a major undertaking and of course with no workshops in the in in london bainbridge had to arrange uh with carl faberge for craftsman to be dispatched from russia and as a result a number of sculptors came from the saint petersburg headquarters and they stayed on the estate in norfolk and uh set to work mainly actually in queen alexandra's dairy which we saw a few slides ago and they made small wax models from life um portraits of all the dogs and horses and these would then be once they'd been approved by the king were dispatched back to russia to be um translated into the relevant um hard stone which of course was very carefully selected by the pietro dura the stone the stone carvers in faberge's workshops and amongst those sculptors was a very famous one boris freudman pluzel um and he had also worked on sculpting portraits for uh one of the king's friends leopold de rothschild on his estate at ascot in buckinghamshire and so successful was this commission and so well received by the king and queen that it was in fact extended to include a whole range of other animals kept on the estate from dexter cattle that you see down on the left-hand side to norfolk black turkeys so the identifiable breeds are very much associated with the estate and with the east of england one of the final purchases of the king at the london branch was this wonderful hearthstone composite carving on the right of the screen of a chelsea pensioner and this is one of only two hearthstone carvings made by the firm which represents an english type of figure um the chelsea pensioner is not identifiable with a specific individual but of course some of the russian types some that the faberge firm produced are indeed actual portrait models and so on the left of the screen you see um commissioned by nicholas ii um where two portrait sculptures in fact have cossack bodyguards of the imperial family and this one is of um a kudinov and the personal bodyguard of the emperor's mother empress marie fierovna the children of edward vii and queen alexandra became early collectors of faberge particularly the future king george v and also his sister princess victoria as duke and duchess of york um and also as prince and princess of wales the future king george v and his consort queen mary who you see in the frames of faberge frames on the screen were regular customers of the london branch and each developed their very particular own particular taste for aspects of faberge's work for their coronation in 1911 they were presented with this very large um carved rock crystal vars mounted in gold in a neo-renaissance style with strapwork enamel and also set with cabochon precious stones and this was a gift from the great friend of the royal family who i mentioned earlier leopold de roth's child and he had the vials delivered actually directly to the king and queen at buckingham palace on the morning of their coronation and indeed it was filled with orchids which he had grown in his garden at gunnersbury his his house just outside london and both the recently discovered archive of henry charles bainbridge which is now housed in the faberge museum in saint petersburg together with photographs of faberge's workshop show the vars um unmounted in the design studio and i'm showing one of those images here you can see um i hope um just uh at the front left side of the workbench on the sort of back wall facing us is the vas but it's actually unmounted you can just make out the carving on the body of the vars and this is rather interesting because great haste was required to have the vars mounted and then for the rock crystal to actually be engraved with the arms and the date of the coronation and um correspondence recently found in the archive of the royal society of sculptors here in london has revealed that the time available to engrave the vars didn't permit being uh having having it sent back to russia and so instead um it was actually the engraving was actually carried out in london by a sculptor and medalist called cecil thomas and he actually undertook his particular part of the carving which was the royal arms and the date of the coronation using a dental drill george v was particularly keen on animal carvings rather like his mother queen alexandra and in this uh image which is a close-up of the interior of the london branch of the firm at 173 new bond street a remarkable carving of a water buffalo in charleston with ivory horns can just be seen on the top shelf to the left you can just make out the horns um i don't know if you can see my cursor but up here and here is the um actual uh sculpture it's just such a wonderful piece of carving and it's absolutely remarkable that in fabulous hearthstone carvings although this is probably only about seven or eight centimeters in length and about four or five centimeters high you can see that the stone has been so carefully selected it has this this gradation of color which kind of mimics the actual coloring of the animal it's very well posed in very very naturalistic way and then you have this wonderful translucency through the legs down to the hooves and we can see also in a rare surviving invoice in the royal archives which are kept at windsor castle the actual purchase of this piece and you can see there listed on the invoice that he actually bought a number of other animals a kangaroo the indian cow which is the piece we're looking at on the right of the screen a bear and a camel and the bear in fact is a koala and also he had um he purchased some very inexpensive um wooden uh cigarette cases on the same day and you'll also note that he received some discount about 10 discount as well so that is probably an indication of what good customers the royal family were of the firm the king and queen commissioned uh frames with miniatures of their children and one of the most famous examples is this beautiful um carved smoky quartz cameo of their eldest son edward prince of wales the future edward viii and this in fact was commissioned to mark his investiture as prince of wales in 1911. and on the right hand side of the um screen you can see um the original um record of the production of this piece in a design album from the workshop of henrik vigstrom who was the third of the three head work masters in the faberge film he was of finish extraction um and so it's wonderful to be able to match those those two things up and we know that uh george v purchased this at a cost of 67 pounds and 10 shillings and he actually gave it to queen mary as a mentor of this obviously highly important occasion for her birthday and in fact it's possible that cecil thomas who i mentioned earlier in connection with the coronation valles also actually engraved this cameo in london queen mary's taste encompassed gold hard stone and gem set boxes many of which were in fact gifts to her uh several of which were gifts from the imperial family so her her family through through her husband um and they include this beautiful um very simple but very elegant nephrite box on the top left which was a gift to queen mary for christmas in 1912 from marie fiatorovna and also an example below which demonstrates faberge's revival of french 18th century gold boxes with catrocular decoration and also set with a moss agate panel at the top and this in fact was given to queen mary when she was duchess of york for christmas in 1894 by um the emperor nicholas ii and alexandra fiorovna and in addition queen mary added some very significant examples of the wonderful flower studies including this a very beautiful example of bleeding heart or digitalis which in fact um she actually purchased herself in 1934 and just to give an idea of the way in which queen mary liked to keep her faberge collection on display um this is a photograph of a cabinet in in buckingham palace in about 1934 and as you can see very clearly um pieces of faberge are mingled with all sorts of other objects ceramics oriental and south asian pieces um and although this looks rather sort of jumbled up it was how she preferred to present her collection and to live with her collection but although it appears to be perhaps slightly disorganized she in fact is someone that we regard almost as the first uh royal curator of the uh royal collection because she actually carefully documented all of her collections in her volumes of so-called biblio so small works of art and she compiled these very diligently between 1893 and 1937. the role of the dealer and of purchases at auction also became important in the collecting of king george v and queen mary and their acquisitions of course straddle both the pre and the pro poster revolutionary periods in russia artworks uh confiscated from the imperial family and other noble russian families uh had to be evaluated in in moscow and this was a process which carl fabijay's son aghathong was actually forced to undertake himself so he would have seen many of the most important pieces that his father's firm had created and once they'd been evaluated and a decision was made they were then those that were to be sold for hard currency by the russian government were then designated for sale through the sovnakam um and the antique variant and of course they began to flood onto the open market in london in from the sort of 1920s and into the 1930s and queen mary um very actively attended sale views at the major london auction houses and she also visited the premises of note of notable london dealers such as uh wartski and her visits of course were in fact documented and this encouraged an interest in in the market for russian decorative art at that early period in the 20s and 30s um her visits were noted in the court circular which is um disseminated through newspapers nationally and magazines and so on and so forth and on one such visit to a dealer in 1947 according to the newspaper the daily telegraph she actually caused a traffic gap jam when she visited one particular dealer to make purchases and as she emerged um the crowd surged forward and cheering and waving so these events became um quite significant and quite well noted in the press and in addition um having been this this wonderful sort of curator of her own collection she also began to make loans from the faberge collection to exhibitions including to the early and very groundbreaking russian exhibition which was held in belgrave square square in london in 1935 and again a few years later to the antique dealers fair and exhibition at grosvenor house in 1948. so these were very early examples of loans from the faberge collection in royal ownership and even after her death an exhibition of her most treasured possessions from marlborough house where she had lived after king george v death was mounted at the victoria and albert museum and the exhibits were arranged to coincide with the rooms in which she had very carefully placed her collection and among those treasures um was one of the three imperial easter eggs which she purchased with the king and here we see on the screen exactly that imperial egg which um as uh you can see is known as the basket of flowers egg for very obvious reasons and this um she had uh purchased in fact in 190 in sorry in 1933 and um this is just one of the most exquisite examples of faberge's enamel and gold work and you can see in the detail on the right of the screen those absolutely beautiful highly detailed and almost you know sort of hyper realistic in their in their naturalness the flowers and the grasses you can see um the little oats which in fact in gold are actually set on tron blanc so that when there's the slightest movement they move and all of the flowers are situated in a bed of gold uh moss and then the whole sits in this egg-shaped vase um with of course the date 1901 and interestingly when this was first acquired by queen mary it wasn't actually thought to be a work by faberge for many many years it was regarded as possibly having been made by the french jeweler and goldsmith boucheron but of course subsequently once it was possible to establish more of the facts it was of course acknowledged as the imperial egg given by nicholas the second to alexander field fiat in 1901 the the second of the two eggs um acquired by uh queen mary and george v is the colonnade egg of 1910 which you see on the screen here and you can also see on the top left hand side uh a note in queen mary's handwriting recording the history of the piece and explaining uh what the piece actually depicts and of course this is a a rather a wonderful piece it's actually a clock so you can see the egg the pink enameled egg at the top has a rotary clock around the top and originally the little putter situated on top held in his outstretched right hand um an arrow which would point to the hour and there's also a little diamond um arrow which pops out from the top of the colonnade as well which would help to indicate the minutes and as i say this was purchased by queen mary in 1931 and it represents a classical temple of love um which is totally uh telling the story of the imperial family and so within the colonnade are a pair of duffs which are actually executed in platinum so it's quite an unusual early example of work in platinum and they represent the emperor and the empress alexandra and nicholas seated around the base are these four female figures they are all very slightly different and they of course represent their four daughters um olga tatiana maria anastasia linked by these wonderful garlands of flowers in in four kind of gold and then the putter that i referred to earlier seated on top is of course the long-awaited heir to the throne the cesarovich um alexa and so this is a wonderfully um wonderfully intimate piece which would of course have made such impact when it was presented on easter day and the third of the three imperial eggs now in the royal collection uh acquired by king george v and queen mary is this one probably one of the most famous of of faberge's imperial eggs the so-called mosaic egg which george v actually purchased in 1933 from a london dealer called cameo corner not far from the british museum if you if you know the british museum and he purchased it for what seems like the incredibly reasonable reasonable price of 250 pounds which actually then was still rather a lot of money um but it's somewhat um ironic because actually recent research has shown that this in fact was the most expensive imperial egg ever made by the faberge firm and this is presumably because of its technical um virtuosity and the egg which you can perhaps see more clearly from the sort of aerial view on the left-hand side of the screen is actually formed of a cage of platinum which has been entirely cut by hand this is not machine made in any way it's set with precious and semi-precious stones as you can see with this design which although of course suggests mosaic in fact uh hence the name of the egg in fact was inspired by um the designer of the egg al mapiel by her mother-in-law sitting by the fire working on her needle point and i think when you look at the the floral the sort of stylized floral motifs in those precious and semi-precious stones you can really now begin to see why and how it was inspired um by that particular activity and of course it's set with these wonderful bands of seed pearls white enamel diamonds and these wonderful sort of wave motifs of diamonds and on the right hand screen the object next to the egg is uh of course the surprise and we saw the elephant automaton surprise earlier and this is um simply as a rather classical cameo on this wonderfully jeweled and enameled um base uh the cameo surmounted by the russian imperial crown and you can see the uh portraits of the five imperial children uh in this sort of ong kamyung painted enamel so after the wonderful um collecting of king george v and queen mary it's really i would say the successor to queen mary in terms of faberge connoisseurship within the royal family was her daughter-in-law um queen elizabeth consort of king george vi and you see her here in this wonderful fabijay frame um dating from about 1900 but which in fact was actually a gift for the king and queen's coronation in 1937 from the maharajah of bikini and he had this uh photograph inserted um of the queen at the time of their ex of the king's accession and queen elizabeth actually formed a really remarkably broad-ranging collection of faberge from the 1940s right through into the 1990s they were very much in the latter decades of of her life and she collected pieces um particularly those made in the moscow branch which are more perhaps artistically um different and sophisticated than many of the objects collected by earlier monarchs and they include this um neo-russian-style cloisonne uh enamel cough excuse me which was made by faberges excuse me workmaster theodore rooked and um in contrast to that again again rather more um challenging in style um but very elegant nonetheless this beautiful pair of uh ruby uh crystal decanters which are surrounded by these classical silver beautifully chased and modeled dolphin heads which act as both the handles but also the spouts queen elizabeth also added um two very significant flower studies to the collection um on the left you can see the cornflowers and oats and on the right the wonderful cornflowers and buttercups and the buttercup as you can see is actually applied with a jeweled bee which is just landing on the petals a really extraordinary tour de force of of the jewelers art and the the cornflowers and oats actually was a joint purchase with uh her mother-in-law queen mary in june 1944 from the firm of wartski and that the price was 144 pounds and of course 1944 we were still in the second world war and remarkably enough queen elizabeth decided to keep this flower in her shelter during the blitz in buckingham palace which is sort of extraordinary thinking this highly fragile very very beautiful object particularly with those oats again that we saw on the basket of flowers egg that move on trembla one can just imagine the bombs dropping around and this this object shaking anyway it survived which is very good news um but in a note to her mother-in-law um queen elizabeth described the cornflowers and oats as a charming thing and remarkably unwar-like so perhaps it was the fact that it was just so uplifting and so beautiful that she decided to keep it there for inspiration and those very very dark days of the second world war and it was three years later that she decided to add the cornflowers and buttercup study um which she purchased for the somewhat larger sum of 375 pounds the king himself added quite a number of gold and enameled cigarette cases and boxes and this very much added to the collection which had been established of course initially by edward vii added to by king george v and and then subsequently um by king george vi and he also um and we can see these wonderful examples on the right hand side these absolutely beautiful very very satisfying very tactile cigarette cases beautifully shaped perfect for use which indeed they were used and in these wonderful designs in different colored golds which are just so exquisite and he also purchased this wonderful imperial presentation box with a portrait of the emperor and this is actually one of the most exceptional examples i think of faberge's gyoshi enameling on an object of this type with this incredible beautiful pale lilac color wonderful moire design which seems to be incredibly three-dimensional when is one is fortunate enough to hold this box and move it around in the light it's absolutely beautiful and uh this had originally been purchased by um sorry purchased through the imperial cabinet and given by in the name of nicholas ii to the russian privy councillor arturo jomanovich rafa rafalovic in 1914 um but having been able to match it to the original design drawing in the vicstrom album which you see beneath the box you can see that actually um it was once uh actually intended to be um surmounted by the diamond set cipher of the emperor rather than the rather more valuable portrait miniature um which presumably was more befitting of the rank of rafalevich as set out of course in the table of ranks which was established many many years before by peter the great but remarkably still still in use in the uh 20th century the fifth generation of royal collectors really brings us to the end of this survey very brief survey of the collection and of course um the present generation of her majesty the queen who's added a number of pieces largely through purchase but also with some gifts and in 1959 um one of her few purchases is this uh clock blue enamel clock which she purchased from the firm of wartskiing and on the right hand side of the screen we see another clock in this instance um bequeathed to his late royal highness the duke of edinburgh who was of course of direct romanoff descent and this was actually a gift um a bequest to him from his aunt queen louise of sweden in 1965 and she herself had been given the clock by the duke's grandmother queen olga of greece who of course was born grand duchess olga of russia and i think one of the unique features of this remarkable collection is the fact that objects from it are still in use or indeed still furnish the royal residences and this includes the london home of his royal highness the prince of wales who has also added pieces to the collection including this rather amusing frog seal which you see in the center of the screen which he was given in 1981 in conclusion we have learned today about just a few of the wonderful many highlights of this extraordinary collection of collections and i think what it demonstrates is the enduring admiration for faberge's craftsmanship but also the royal family's delight in his ever inventive creations what really comes across very strongly and what i hope you will take away of course are how important those family connections are and as you've seen bound up in almost every piece redolent of some of fabijay's greatest work but i think we also learn about the intimate personal and the regularly used pieces that were not mere trophies but beloved family possessions which of course they remain to this day thank you again uh i'll begin with a little bit of a broad question here uh the individual asks may i ask if there is still work to do in cataloging faberge pieces and in addition to this first part which monarch was the most prolific in collecting faberge okay good question so for part one uh and i think i've now really completed the in effect what is a re-cataloguing of of this amazing collection and all it's up to it's sort of 900 pieces and that's something i've been working on over a number of years in preparation for the publication of my uh catalogue which you know i hope will um come out in a not too distant future uh so no i think that work is is completed and secondly i think uh for part two of the question um you know you've seen a sort of five six generations of the royal family as as collectors but i think um almost certainly probably in terms of numbers in terms of volume of pieces it would certainly be um queen alexandra she was really as i said with with her sister mary fierovna they were the two that really um sort of pushed forward and i suppose you know created this um through their family connections through this uh the these sort of a lot of gift exchange um this this market really for for faberge's work which of course filtered down through you know the elite of society and then into the sort of industrialists and and you know through broader society and um so i would say queen alexandre probably in in terms of the sheer number of pieces now in the collection which were acquired by her fantastic thank you so next individual asked did queen elizabeth ii wear the 60th jubilee brooch made for victoria and her 60th jubilee a very good question um for her majesty's diamond jubilee no um she didn't uh she uh well uh for marking um her majesty the queen's diamond jubilee were quite a number of events we had a sort of weekend with wonderful events um including a service of thanksgiving at st paul's cathedral and if my memory serves me correctly which it might not um i believe her majesty wore um two of the wonderful uh cullinan um diamonds from the from the famous culinary diamond the largest diamond ever discovered in history um the culinary three and four which are worn in the form of a broach um so she didn't wear that particular broach on that occasion but i can say that her majesty does lend that broach and indeed it's quite often worn by the duchess of cornwall the consort of his royal highness the prince of wales so it is worn it is still worn within the family all right so keeping on with this train of thought of items within your presentation one of our guests asked in the basket of flowers 1901 easter egg were the flowers made of ceramic they looked so incredibly real how did something so delicate survive the revolution moving and just well time i often ask myself the same question to be honest um but no they're not ceramic um all of the well the whole egg effectively the body with the egg the handle and the base are made of silver and gold and the egg itself you can conveniently i hope you can still see it on the screen i'm not sure i hope you can um is that the body of the egg is enameled in that wonderful white uh giorgio oyster gyosha enamel with set with that diamond trellis pattern but the flowers themselves although they look perhaps a little bit like ceramic they're actually all gold and silver and then enamel applied with different types of enamel and i think you can see the pansies and the daisies and the cornflowers and the you know beautiful beautiful things so they're not ceramic they are enamel in terms of its survival and and you know how on earth this this object which really is incredibly fragile has has survived the passage of time and the kind of tumultuous period of the revolution itself um again you know it is rather surprising uh but it and in fact it did uh we believe sustain some damage in its history um so we see that the the basket the egg shaped basket is actually in that oyster enamel but the base is actually in blue and originally i believe that the base was actually also an oyster enamel and there is a surviving invoice which seems to indicate that there were repairs to the enamel um so we have to sort of weigh up the balance between the images of this egg when it was lent uh by uh empress alexandra theodorovna um to an exhibition in petersburg in 1902 um with the as i say with this invoice which indicates that there was some damage but but the flowers themselves which are probably the most fragile part appear to have survived completely intact which is completely remarkable but obviously it's very well looked after now thank you um so next question here the comparison of the mosaic egg to needlework is obvious is there any sign of the influence of something like roman micro mosaic really good question actually yes i think it does put us in mind of wonderful micro mosaic you know that the tiny tiny those little tiny patera the little tiny squares that would be the equivalent of of a mosaic are i think yeah i think that's absolutely a really good observation and i think that that micro mosaic um analogy is is a very good one so yes i would agree and that obviously um would seem to uh you know be another factor in the naming of the egg too of course thank you so next questions here i'm going to put a little bit of uh two questions together from two different attendees uh first is going to be which faberge work is your favorite the individual's favorite is the imperial lilies of the valley and to add on to that inquiry what sources do you suggest if there are members of the audience that want to learn more about the history of faberge and collection pieces okay so my favorite piece well um gosh it's it's almost impossible to say it because of course there are just so many wonderful pieces out there not just in in her majesty the queen's collection but if i limit myself perhaps to the royal collection um of course the eggs are extraordinary and amazing and i do really adore the mosaic egg i think every time i have the great privilege of handling it and looking at it it never ceases to amaze me how extraordinary it is but having said that i would say that that beautiful blue um avenue style cigarette case with a snake i think is is one of the most elegant one of the most luxurious it has this uh fantastic story this amazing provenance and uh it still in fact has inside it the stub of one of edward vii cigars so it feels it feels very real it feels as though it could have been put down you know yesterday um having been used by a member of the family um which i hasten told it isn't used today but um i think that is probably really really exquisite in terms of resources of course as i said right back at the beginning i didn't want to go into a sort of massive history of the whole firm because it's extremely well documented there are absolutely wonderful publications out there and almost too numerous i think to mention um but i think if if again i could just turn it back to the collection please do um go on to our website where you can find information about every single piece um in the collection and our website rct.uk and you'll find lots of images and lots of lovely material there and then just google faberge and you'll find a whole raft of wonderful publications fantastic thank you so i'm going to leave things off with a final question for you here before going into some closing remarks but are there cases designed to hold these pieces eggs in particular that have survived again an excellent question and yes there are um and however um having said that um the scale when you think of the scale of of the collection that i look after um we actually have a very very small number of surviving cases um so every single piece of faberge was retailed in a beautiful usually um pale blonde wood a box lined in silk and silk velvet stamped with the imperial warrant which also helps us to date the objects sometimes if they're unmarked and um these were perfectly made there was a separate workshop at fabajay's headquarters in sir petersburg especially all they did was to make these boxes they really were beautiful and so in a sense it's it's it's kind of you know disappointing in a way that we have so few of them surviving in the royal collection um but some of the ones we do are for the most important pieces and indeed um for the colonnade egg the wonderful um temple uh egg uh we actually have that original case and i think that's it's just a wonderful survival from that period of history and it's it's a very beautiful egg-shaped box covered in velvet and lined in silk and we still use it to move the egg around today

Channel: Russian History Museum

Views: 863

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Russian History, Romanovs, Faberge, Second Saturdays

Id: Qy7IIYD_uq8

Length: 61min 6sec (3666 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 14 2021