Fabergé, Jeweller to the Imperial Court

On 25 November 2020, the exhibition “Fabergé, Jeweller to the Imperial Court” will begin its run in the Armorial Hall of the Winter Palace. It presents works by Carl Fabergé (1846–1920), the celebrated jeweller and outstanding master of the jeweller’s trade, that were created more than 100 years ago..

In a tribute to this great figure, the Hermitage is showing in all their diversity creations that have never ceased to delight and to amaze with the imagination and skilful execution that they display. The works produced by imperial Russia’s last court jeweller, whose activities were inseparably bound up with the Winter Palace and the Imperial Hermitage, speak of the exquisite taste and love of beauty of its former inhabitants.

The display in the Armorial Hall of the Winter Palace includes items from the stocks of the State Hermitage, the Fabergé Museum in Baden-Baden, the Peterhof State Museum-Preserve, the Pavlovsk State Museum-Preserve, the Russian National Museum (Moscow) and the Museum of Christian Culture (Saint Petersburg).

Peter Carl (Karl Gustavovich) Fabergé was born in Saint Petersburg in 1846. From 1866, over a period of 15 years, Carl Fabergé visited the Treasure Gallery of the Imperial Hermitage, studying and restoring works of jewellery made by master craftsmen of the past. In 1874 he began supplying items made in his own workshop to His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet (the body that managed the imperial family’s affairs), and in 1874 Fabergé was awarded the status of “Supplier to the Court of His Imperial Majesty”, followed in 1910 by the title of Court Jeweller to the Imperial Court. The year 1885 saw the start of the “imperial series”, a celebrated, unique phenomenon in the history of the jeweller’s craft. In 1901 Nicholas II purchased the miniature copy of the imperial crown jewels that had been awarded the Grand Prix at the World’s Fair in Paris. In 1902 the Imperial Hermitage facilitated the organization of the jeweller’s first personal exhibition that was held for just two days in Baron von Derviz’s mansion on the English Embankment in Saint Petersburg. The event, with Empress Alexandra Feodorovna acting as its patron, was a complete triumph for Carl Fabergé. During the First World War, Fabergé’s firm supplied medical equipment to the military hospital that was set up in the Winter Palace. In 1918 Carl Fabergé left Russia never to return.

In 1993 the exhibition “Fabergé, Court Jeweller” was held in the Saint George Hall of the Winter Palace, followed by runs in Paris and London. The Hermitage then presented a series of exhibitions devoted to the Fabergé collections, and in 2014 the museum opened the Carl Fabergé Memorial Halls in its General Staff building. In the year of the Hermitage’s 250th anniversary, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented the museum with two of the jeweller’s masterpieces – a Mantel Clock and the Rothschild Clock Egg.

The House of Fabergé produced a great variety of different items that stood out for their extremely high quality as the firm employed the finest craftspeople: jewellers, stonecutters, enamellers, silversmiths and designers. Carl Fabergé was aided in running and developing such a business by his personal organizational skills: he capably handled commercial matters, producing pieces for the middle class, but it was the commissions from the imperial family that brought him worldwide fame.

The exhibition includes the miniature copy of the Imperial Crown Jewels that the House of Fabergé produced for the World’s Fair held in Paris in 1900, having obtained the special permission of His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet.

An Easter present from Alexander III to his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna – a white enamel egg containing a surprise in the form of a little chicken made of coloured gold with a crown and small ruby egg inside – began the “imperial series” of Easter eggs, a celebrated, unique phenomenon in the history of the jeweller’s craft. The House of Fabergé’s artists and craftspeople produced gifts in the form of eggs not only for Easter, but also to mark various occasions in the life of the imperial family. The exhibits include an egg made for the 10th wedding anniversary of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna and an egg presented to Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna.

The display contains gifts and personal items belonging to monarchs that were made by the celebrated firm, items of everyday use and interior décor that once adorned the living apartments of the imperial residences, and objects that were intended to become diplomatic gifts. Visitors will be able to see diadems that belonged to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, a tiara of Maria Feodorovna, bracelets of both empresses, a brooch that was among the gifts that Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna took on a visit to Britain in 1908, a ring that Nicholas II’s children gave him in 1913 to mark the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, a dish presented to Nicholas II by the Saint Petersburg nobility on the occasion of his coronation, a mantel clock that was given to Alexander III and Maria Feodorovna on 28 October (9 November) 1891 by members of the imperial family for the couple’s silver wedding anniversary, and many other items.

Fabergé’s familiarity with the collections of jewellery in the Treasure Gallery prompted him to turn to the creation of objets de luxe and objets dе fantasiе – expensive items for wealthy customers. The result was figurines of animals and people. cigarette cases, clocks and photograph frames made of gold and silver and decorated with enamel and precious stones. The exhibition features the Rothschild Clock Egg that gets its name from having been commissioned for Baron Rothschild in 1902; frames containing photographs of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and her daughter Tatiana, Emperors Alexander III and Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna and Tsesarevich Alexei, and others, as well as precious figurines skilfully carved from stone: a figurine of a soldier, a figurine-portrait of Andrei Kudinov, a Cossack in Empress Maria Feodorovna’s retinue. Attention will inevitably be drawn by the carved stone figurines of animals: a kangaroo that belonged to Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and an agate figurine of a mouse that was a gift from Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich to the ballerina Mathilda Kschessinska.

The items exhibited are marked by the variety of techniques in which the craftspeople worked, the abundance of different shapes and wealth of imagination. The technique of producing translucent enamel and applying it to the engraved or guilloché surface of an object became a characteristic feature of House of Fabergé products.

Carl Fabergé made his contemporaries appreciate first and foremost the creative component in his products – the skills of the makers, the uniqueness of the technology and the concept, and only then notice the high value of the material itself. A substantial role in this was also played by the fact that the patrons he made his priority were people from the highest echelons of society: the imperial family and aristocratic circles – well educated judges, with broad intellectual horizons and a knowledge of both contemporary art in Russia and Europe and art history. In the hands of Fabergé’s jewellers, frames, timepieces, electric bell pushes, walking stick and umbrella handles, inkstands and many other everyday objects acquired the appearance of sophisticated works of art.

The outbreak of the First World War restricted production (just prior to 1914, around 600 people were employed in Fabergé’s workshops), but the firm adapted its facilities to the needs of wartime and began to produce items intended for the front. Such objects include a pan and container for sterilization bearing the inscription “Military Hospital named after the Heir and Grand Duke Alexei Nikolayevich in the Winter Palace” and the monograms of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and her older daughters, Olga and Tatiana, who worked as nurses in the hospital that was installed in the state rooms of the imperial residence, a washbasin inscribed “Field Hospital Train № 142 named after Her Imperial Majesty Empress Maria Feodorovna” and a field samovar carrying the monograms of Emperor Nicholas II and his son, Tsesarevich Alexei.

The atmosphere of the period around the turn of the 20th century is recreated in the exhibition by portraits, costumes and personal belongings of members of the imperial family.

The exhibition has been prepared by the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Applied Art (headed by Olga Grigoryevna Kotiuk). The exhibition curators are Marina Nikolayevna Lopato, Doctor of Art Studies, Head of the Artistic Metal and Stone Sector in the Department of Western European Applied Art, and Tatiana Valeryevna Baboshina, researcher in the Department of Western European Applied Art.

A scholarly illustrated catalogue, Faberzhe – iuvelir Imperatorskogo dvora (2020), has been produced by the State Hermitage publishing house for the exhibition.

The catalogue has a foreword by Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, entitled “Fabergé is back in the Winter Palace”.

The exhibition curator, author of the concept and the introduction to the catalogue is the late Marina Nikolayevna Lopato (1942–2020), Doctor of Art Studies, Head of the Artistic Metal and Stone Sector in the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Applied Art (1978–2020), curator of the exhibition “Fabergé, Court Jeweller” in the State Hermitage in 1993.

The catalogue was compiled by Tatiana Valeryevna Baboshina, researcher in the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Applied Art. The catalogue was designed by Irina Mikhailovna Dalekaya.