What happened to the Faberge company?

The beginning of the activities of the Faberge company dates back to 1842, when a native of the city of Pärnu, merchant of the 2nd guild Gustav Faberge, opened a small store with a jewelry workshop in the Admiralty part of St. Petersburg. Like many jewelers of that time, Gustav Faberge sought to open his own business in the capital of the Russian Empire. His son Karl was born in St. Petersburg in 1846, under whose leadership the family firm later became the largest enterprise in the country and world-famous. Gustav Faberge understood that the future leader of the family business must receive comprehensive training, and sent his son on a long journey. In Europe, Karl received his education and visited all the significant centers of jewelry art, where he gained many ideas for future work. It was no coincidence that contemporaries called Carl Faberge a scientist and educated jeweler: he was engaged in research and restoration work, and for many years, starting in 1867, he studied and restored jewelry works of different eras from the collection of the Imperial Hermitage.

Carl Faberge at work. St. Petersburg, 1900s. Photographer G. Eberg.

In 1872, Karl took over the family firm. In 1885, Carl Faberge was awarded the title of supplier to the Supreme Court, and five years later he was awarded the title of appraiser of the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty. The last two decades of the XNUMXth century became a time of international recognition for the company and its leader, who was awarded honorary orders and received the title of supplier to many European monarchs. The Faberge firm had branches in Moscow (since 1887), Odessa (since 1901), London (since 1903) and Kyiv (since 1906). The main jewelry production, the main store and office were located in St. Petersburg, in Carl Faberge’s own house on Bolshaya Morskaya Street, 24. There was also a design studio, a specialized library, a fashionable apartment of Carl Faberge himself and jewelry workshops, the activities of which the master could personally control. The company employed the best St. Petersburg jewelers, such as Mikhail Perkhin and his successor Henrik Wigström, in whose workshop the imperial Easter eggs were created. The leading silversmith of the company was Julius Rappoport. Prominent gold and silversmiths of the company were also Eric Collin, Victor Aarne, August Holmström and others. The company’s orders were carried out by miniaturists Vasily Zuev and Johann Zeingraf, and sculptors Boris Fredman-Clusel and Georgy Savitsky. The main “artist-composers” (designers) of the company were first Carl Fabergé’s brother Agathon, and then, after his death in 1895, Franz Bierbaum. Famous Russian artists and architects collaborated with the company: Valentin Serov, Alexander Benois, Fyodor Shekhtel. The total number of employees of the Faberge company during its heyday, that is, at the turn of the 500th and 1842th centuries, exceeded 1918 people. Over the entire period of its existence, from 300,000 to XNUMX, it produced approximately XNUMX items. All of them were made at the highest level of jewelry craftsmanship; many of them were unique and glorified the company, and with it, Russian jewelry art throughout the world. Faberge’s clients included almost all the crowned heads of Europe, their relatives, prominent political figures and entrepreneurs, and famous artists. Carl Faberge faced great difficulties during the First World War. Many of its craftsmen were taken into military service. After the October Revolution, the Faberge firm ceased its activities. The new government destroyed both the main clients of Carl Faberge – the Imperial House of Romanov, and the enterprise itself. Faberge left Russia in 1918 using forged documents from a courier at the English embassy. Two years later, the great jeweler died in Lausanne and was buried in the Grand Jas cemetery in Cannes. Moscow Kremlin Museums

The history of the famous Faberge firm

jade, rock crystal, flower fluff. ‘> In 1882, the young but already famous jeweler Carl Faberge (1846–1920) participated in the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition in Moscow, where he received a gold medal. It was a complete success, despite the fact that he presented his products for the first time at such a prestigious competition in the field of arts and industry and competed with the famous firms “K. E. Bolin”, “V. S. Makholov”, enterprises of Pavel Ovchinnikov, Ivan Khlebnikov, Wilhelm Adler. In 1885, Carl Faberge was allowed to be called a supplier to the Imperial Court, and five years later he was awarded the title of appraiser of the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty. The period of international recognition for the company was the 1880–1890s, when Faberge acquired many admirers of his talent abroad. His international debut at the Nuremberg Exhibition in 1885 brought him a gold medal. At the Northern Exhibition in Copenhagen in 1888, Fabergé was also awarded a gold medal and an honorary diploma for displaying products outside of competition. Based on the results of the Northern Art and Industrial Exhibition of 1897 in Stockholm, he received the title of supplier to His Majesty the King of Sweden and Norway. C. Faberge worthily represented gold, silver and jewelry abroad – that branch of the artistic industry in which the Russians, by all accounts, had no equal in Europe. At the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris, Carl Faberge, together with outstanding French masters, was a member of the jury for the class of precious jewelry and costume jewelry. At the same time, outside the competition, his works were exhibited at the exhibition: Easter eggs provided by the royal family, miniature copies of state regalia, jewelry, stone carvings and precious flowers in rock crystal vases, which were a great success among Parisians and guests of the city who came from all over the world. For his skill he was awarded the highest French Order of the Legion of Honor and a bronze exhibition medal. Everything brought for sale was bought up by visitors to the exhibition, and some time later, European manufacturers began producing products that imitated the fashionable, but rather expensive products of Carl Faberge. It is unlikely that Gustav Faberge, a native of Pärnu, who founded the jewelry business in 1842, expected that it would develop so brilliantly. This was the merit of his son Peter Karl, who initially belonged to his father’s family and capital, and in 1872 headed the family business. Under his leadership, a small workshop and store in the Admiralty part of St. Petersburg turned into one of the largest jewelry enterprises in Russia with branches in Moscow, Kyiv, Odessa and London. Karl Gustavovich, who received a good artistic and commercial education, was a jeweler, artist, restorer and, most importantly, a talented entrepreneur. He managed to attract the best St. Petersburg and Moscow jewelers, miniaturists, sculptors, painters and architects to cooperation. The main workshops of the company were located in St. Petersburg, in a house on Bolshaya Moskovskaya Street, built by the architect Karl Schmidt, a relative of Faberge. Some craftsmen worked in their own premises and were connected with Carl Faberge through a system of contracts. Many of the works were based on the artistic ideas of his younger brother, Agathon, but the most prominent role in the affairs of the company was played by the four sons of Carl Faberge: Eugene and Agathon, who actually led the St. Petersburg branch with their father, Alexander, who headed the Moscow branch, and Nikolai, who worked in London. . During his lifetime, many of Carl Faberge’s products were treated not only as precious goods, but also as artistic treasures, works of museum quality. In 1902, an exhibition was shown in the luxurious mansion of Baron von Derviz, which was visited by many St. Petersburg residents. Faberge’s artistic works from the collections of members of the imperial family and private individuals were exhibited there along with antique snuff boxes and miniatures, which testified to the high status of the company’s products. Possession of elegant, luxurious items from a famous jeweler of the Russian court has become something of a badge of honor, evidence of belonging to a select circle. Buyers of products with the mark “K. Faberge” were crowned heads, representatives of the titled nobility, financial and industrial elite of the whole world – from St. Petersburg to Bangkok. The Faberge jewelry company became the first Russian company to penetrate into Siam: the chambers of the Thai monarchs are still decorated with a jade Buddha made by its craftsmen. In addition to unique works created in a single copy by special order, the company produced mass products, which were the main source of income and satisfied the wide demand of various segments of the population. The factory and workshops, equipped with the most modern equipment, employed a large staff of artists and craftsmen of various specialties, which made it possible to produce large quantities of dishes and silverware, modern haberdashery and jewelry, various trinkets and souvenirs costing from a few rubles to tens of thousands. Depending on changing demand and fashion requirements, craftsmen created products in a strict classical style, whimsical rocaille style, or made them in the spirit of national romanticism. The technical techniques were just as diverse – from exquisite polychrome guilloché enamels and artistic sculptural casting to dry stamped patterns and traditional Russian filigree. Despite the fact that judgments about the style of Faberge products can be the most controversial, it is obvious that the company’s products are distinguished by the highest class of jewelry craftsmanship, an amazing sense of material, the right choice of design styles and, of course, a witty concept. Everyday objects of the Faberge firms – watches, thermometers with guilloché enamel, electric table bells with diamond buttons and various trinkets in the form of tiny garden watering cans, gold chests of drawers and sedan chairs in the style of Louis XVI – made with extraordinary care, were part of that highly organized artistic environment, refined and at the same time comfortable, the creation of which was sought at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries. Faberge’s legacy is enormous, since in his creativity he was able to embrace all types and genres of gold, silver and jewelry craftsmanship. © 1997-2024 Federal State Budgetary Institution “State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve “Moscow Kremlin” 103132 Russia, Moscow, Kremlin