Which Faberge Easter Egg is currently considered lost?

Last week it became known that an Easter egg by Carl Faberge, created back in 1892, was put up for auction. The starting price of the lot is about $390 thousand, which is tens of times less than the cost of other precious eggs (and clearly lower than its final price). Onlíner talks about the fate of the famous jeweler who made “kinder surprises” for the royal family, and his most expensive works.

The chief jeweler of the imperial palace considered himself mediocrity

Carl Faberge was born in 1846 in St. Petersburg to a German father and a Danish mother. The father had his own jewelry workshop, and according to the tradition of those years, the son was supposed to eventually take over his business. When Karl was 26 years old, he not only continued what his father had started, but also turned his father’s jewelry company into one of the most famous in the world. Karl loved antiquity and traveled around the world in search of previously unknown jewelry techniques (and later resurrected the fashion for enamel). Having received a prestigious education in Europe, in his homeland Faberge worked for free as a restorer in the Imperial Hermitage to get acquainted with Russian antiquity. All that is known about his personal life is that at this time he married and had three sons, but that’s where the details end. Carl Faberge did not create world-famous works of art with his own hands However, the master not only came up with ornate patterns and showered everything around with jewelry – he also loved products made of simple metal, semi-precious stones, and silver. So in 1905, a “gentleman’s set” appeared: a brick, a newspaper, a cigarette butt, a cut glass with vodka and a snack, and instead of an egg – a scrambled egg with a fly (106 years later it would be sold for $1,1 million). This “gentleman’s set” will be sold for $106 million after 1,1 years One day, Emperor Alexander III saw the work of his jewelry house at an exhibition. He was shocked and decided to order an Easter gift from the jeweler for his wife Maria Fedorovna. So in 1885, the first precious egg from the collection appeared, covered with white enamel, inside of which there was a yolk and a gold hen, and jewelry in the bird. This was not an original idea: it was based on the idea of ​​the king himself, who wanted to please his wife and give her a gift that would remind her of her homeland (the same egg was kept in a museum in Denmark). Maria Feodorovna was so delighted that the emperor decided to make this a tradition, and to appoint Faberge as the jeweler of the palace. The first Easter egg that marked the beginning of the imperial collection The tradition was continued by his son Nicholas II, who gave two eggs every Easter: to his widowed mother and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna. The customer never knew what the egg would look like: it was left to the discretion of the jewelers. It took an average of a year to create one egg. The Romanov family was very religious – hence the idea of ​​Easter eggs At the same time, Monsieur Faberge did not create world-famous works of art with his own hands: a staff of eminent masters worked for him. He only drew sketches and supervised the work, considering himself a mediocre jeweler. When he was once asked how to learn jewelry making, he jokingly replied: “You can’t learn skill without beating. They didn’t beat me – that’s why nothing happened.” The last photograph of Carl Fabergé with his wife Augusta and son Eugene, 1920. Photo: biography-life.ru

Revolution, forced privatization, escape and depression

Over the next 32 years, the jewelry house created at least 71 more eggs based on the matryoshka principle (there was certainly some kind of surprise inside). A dozen eggs from Faberge’s workshop were made by order of Tsar Alexander, and another 40 were made for the family of his son. A series of Easter eggs was created from 1885 to 1917. In total, 71 copies are known to have been created, of which at least 50 are imperial. Photo: Liliya Vitol/pinterest.com Since all the representatives of the Russian nobility in those years knew each other, news of Faberge’s skill spread at the speed of sound. Every rich family certainly wanted Faberge jewelry. Orders multiplied, and with it the business expanded – the company moved to a specially built building on Bolshaya Morskaya, 24, to accommodate 500 craftsmen and artists. Subsequently, offices were also opened in London and Kyiv. And then the crisis began, and the demand for jewelry fell. The House of Faberge was not at a loss and began producing copper utensils. In 1917, the October Revolution occurred, which crossed out all the ambitious plans of the jeweler. The Bolsheviks who came to power recognized all Faberge workshops and stores as state property (his son managed to take some of the jewelry out of the country). Some of the works located there were taken into their hands, and another part was sold for next to nothing through Antikvariat. Then there was a famine, and some jewelry was resold more than a dozen times, so it is hardly possible to establish the location of many of them. His company manufactured jewelry, watches, cigarette cases, decorative items and silverware. This Russian German had stores in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kyiv and Odessa. Several salons catered to the establishment in London, New York, Geneva and even Hong Kong. The master’s inlaid products were considered among the most desirable in the world and in value rivaled only the works of masters from Tiffany and Cartier. But in 1918 the Bolsheviks nationalized the company. But by the time the property was confiscated, Carl Faberge’s main safe was already empty. Where did the jewelry go? Talks about this program “Incredibly interesting stories” with Alexey Korzin on REN TV.

Traces of Faberge Treasures

It is unknown where the famous jewelry is located today. Some believe they were buried somewhere. Others claim that the jewelry was walled up in one of the hundreds of thousands of St. Petersburg walls. One thing is clear: as soon as the revolution broke out in Russia, all the works of the famous jeweler disappeared. But not without a trace. In the 2005st century, Faberge’s works unexpectedly appeared at auction houses. In 2007, precious stone carvings went under the hammer, and in 3, one of the legendary jeweler’s Easter eggs went under the hammer. And three years ago, a private collection was put up for $80 million at a famous British auction. The collection includes more than XNUMX items by Faberge. The owner is businessman Harry Wolf. “Being passionate about collecting, studying all sorts of books about Faberge, consulting with experts, Wulf collected his collection for 50 years. He died in November 2019 at the age of 85.” – noted the general director of the auction house Guillaume Cerutti. Study of strawberries in a rock crystal glass, with decorations made of gold, enamel, jade, pearls and diamonds. There is also a bonbonniere decorated with guilloché enamel and an aventurine dish with individual silver elements. A serious battle broke out between collectors for these items even before the bidding began. And from the start of the auction, the British businessman’s collection was sold out in just a couple of hours. This is despite the fact that the final price turned out to be twice as much as that set by the appraisers. “The most expensive sold lot in the collection was a mosaic brooch made of gold and platinum, decorated with precious stones. It was sold for 350 thousand pounds.” – said Guillaume Cerutti. Fabergé fans fought for stone-cutting figurines, ceramics and even photo frames. But among all this splendor there was not a single Easter egg – the calling card of the jewelry house. Photo: © Faberge Easter Egg, RIA Novosti/Evgeniy Odinokov

Clock in an egg: an amazing find by an American businessman

The Faberge jewelry house produced about 70 Easter eggs. But only 52 have survived to this day. More recently, another priceless masterpiece was discovered in America. And the most interesting thing is that his owner was at first very upset about this purchase at the flea market. Send it to the melting furnace – this is what the American entrepreneur planned to do with one of the rare works of Carl Faberge. The fact is that the businessman got the imperial Easter egg by accident. He bought it at a flea market for $14. The amount, of course, is not small. But neither the seller nor the buyer himself had any idea how much this thing actually cost. “He wanted to make quick money by reselling it for a thousand dollars more. But when there were no buyers, I thought that it could be melted down and sold on the black market,” – explained antique gallery employee Hannah Fabry. Fortunately, before destroying the jewelry, the businessman took a good look at it. And I found an engraved watch inside the egg. And when I found the name of the manufacturer on the Internet, I was speechless. It turned out that this jewelry was from the lost collection of the Russian imperial family. A few hours later the lucky man was already flying to London to show the head of one of the antique galleries a photograph of his find. “It was as if the holy grail flew right through the doors of our gallery. Director Keiran and I were literally shaking with excitement. We always reserve our opinion until we have personally inspected the item. But this man did not look like a scammer at all,” – noted Hannah Fabry. The gallery staff listened to the American and immediately flew to the USA. They couldn’t wait to see the decoration for themselves and make sure it was original. “We found the lost Faberge egg on the kitchen table between the sugar bowl and the pie. Of course, it was a shock for us. But its owner was even more surprised. When we told him that the egg was real, he fell to the floor, but remained conscious,” Hannah Fabry said. Photo: © commons.wikimedia.org/KDS4444 (CC BY-SA 4.0)

How did Faberge become the emperor’s chief jeweler?

The found egg is one of the first creations of Faberge. Alexander III ordered it as a gift to his wife Maria Feodorovna for Easter in 1887. In total, Karl Gustavovich made 52 similar decorations for the imperial family. But how did a modest German manage to become His Majesty’s jeweler? “You know, there are incredible events in history, and the most incredible event was Emperor Alexander III’s acquaintance with the art of Carl Fabergé. The man is absolutely tight-fisted – he reduced the apparatus of officials, almost everywhere and everywhere he demanded absolute financial discipline, he was a very economical person. But he admired art. And when he came across the works of Carl Faberge, he realized that he had found the man who would be the chief jeweler of His Imperial Majesty,” – said candidate of historical sciences Vadim Mingalev. A few years after the fateful meeting, Carl Faberge’s company became the official manufacturer of jewelry for the Russian Imperial House. In addition, he supplied products for the kings of Sweden, Norway and Siam. And in 1900, at Bolshaya Morskaya, 24, in St. Petersburg, Karl built a four-story mansion. In addition to the store, workshops and apartments, the mansion had a huge armored German safe. This fireproof cabinet still stands in the same place as in the time of Carl Faberge. But the jewelry that was stored in it was gone. And not only the jeweler’s personal jewelry, but those that his colleagues entrusted to the famous master for safekeeping.

Where did Faberge’s treasures go?

After the October Revolution, civil war broke out in Russia. To provide the troops with weapons and ammunition, the Bolsheviks issued a special decree. It allowed searches of any citizen and confiscation of found jewelry for the needs of the Red Army. An exception was made only for employees of foreign diplomatic missions. To save the jewelry, Carl Faberge rented out his house to the Swiss embassy. Photo: © commons.wikimedia.org/sailko (CC BY-SA 3.0) In the summer of 1918, an assassination attempt was made on Lenin, after which the situation in St. Petersburg became tense. The Bolsheviks stormed the British embassy and took representatives of the establishment and bourgeoisie hostage. Faberge understood that any day they would come for him. He planned to flee the country, taking with him one of the six traveling bags he had filled with jewelry. But before escaping, it was necessary to return the treasures left for safekeeping to colleagues. But he didn’t have time. “The Swiss turned out to be, to put it mildly, unscrupulous people. They simply deceived or, as they say now, cheated the jeweler. They contacted the Norwegians and said that an attack was allegedly being prepared on the Swiss diplomatic mission and that it should be transported to the Norwegians, it would be more peaceful,” – said Vadim Mingalev. At the same time, Carl Faberge was not even warned about the transportation of jewelry. But the jeweler was the first to be told that the very next night the Norwegian embassy was robbed and all the bags with jewelry were taken away. “Moreover, where his safe was, the security officers opened it, and those jewelry and money also disappeared. Practically, Faberge leaves Russia without money and without anything. Moreover, his family is simply forced to start a vegetable garden so as not to die of hunger. Imagine, this greatest man, a genius in jewelry making, could barely make ends meet and could not stand it. Two years after he left his homeland, he dies,” – noted Vadim Mingalev. Historians are sure: the Faberge robbery was a conspiracy between the Swiss, Norwegians and the Petrograd Cheka. There is even evidence. After the death of the wife of one of the high-ranking Scandinavian officials, a gold cigarette case from Fabergé’s personal collection was found in her bank safe. Its number completely matches what is indicated in the inventory of things that were in one of the stolen bags. The most mysterious and interesting places on our planet, amazing customs of peoples, incredible stories and much more – in the Research Institute program on REN TV.