Petr Karl Fabergé is the Russian goldsmith-artist whose creations flooded the royal houses of Europe. Gustav's father founded the Fabergé jewelry store in 1842 and to this day it is one of the most famous Russian names in the world and of course the name that symbolizes absolute luxury.
Beauty, magnificence and elegance are the elements that compose Fabergé's creations. To these must be added talent and art, traditions and bold styles, and impressive collections, in which many of its exhibits are related to mysteries and myths.
"A healthy Fabergé" became a symbol of wealth of the Imperial House of Russia. However, some of the precious Fabergé jewels were lost or stolen.
The Bolsheviks nationalized the workshop and property of the jewelers' family, and their children managed to save very few exhibits. The dramatic events of the revolution of 1917 resulted in the closure of the Fabergé company in 1918. Peter Karl Fabergé himself left for Riga, and from there he went to Germany, where he fell ill as he was overwhelmed by the sadness of leaving his homeland. In the summer of 1920 his wife and their eldest son decided to move to Lausanne, just as on September 24, 1920, Peter Karl Fabergé died (buried in Cannes, France).
The revolutionary Bolshevik government began selling many of his masterpieces, very cheaply, almost for free, in the shops of St. Petersburg and then sold them abroad through the company "Antiques" (Soviet foreign trade organization). Most of Fabergé's jewelry ended up in Europe and the United States, mostly in private collections. Exact data on the number of jewels sold abroad after the revolution and their buyers do not exist, as these unique jewels were sold literally "by the weigh".
To this day, for example, it is unknown where "The Hen with the Sapphire Pendant" is located, which was the second exhibit in the series of imperial Easter Eggs (according to the description in the State Archives of the Soviet Union, this jewel was "a hen of gold and brilliants, pulling out of a basket a sugar egg"). Fabergé had produced more than 70 eggs, of which more than fifty were commissioned by the Imperial House.
The first egg ("the Hen") was ordered in 1885 by Tsar Alexander III, wanting to make it as a surprise Easter gift to his wife Maria Feodorovna. Externally it looks like an ordinary white egg, covered by a shell made of enamel, while inside its golden "yolk", there is a platinum hen, on which a small copy of the imperial crown crafted with diamonds and a chain with a ruby pendant can be seen. Faberge's Easter gifts have since become a tradition.
The next tsar Nicholas II each spring ordered two precious eggs, one for his mother Maria Feodorovna and one for his wife Alexandra Feodorovna. The first egg, donated to the new tsarina, was called "The Egg with the Rose Bud". The surprise lay inside the egg, where there was a yellow rose reminiscent of the homeland of Alexandra Feodorovna Darmstadt, who prided herself on her flowers. Inside the flower was a crown and a pendant (which have been lost).
Today "The Hen" and "The Egg with the Rose Bud" are in the private Fabergé Museum in St. Petersburg.
These eggs, like seven other imperial eggs, as well as about 250 other Fabergé jewels, were sold at Sotheby's auction by the heirs of Malcolm Forbes, editor of Forbes magazine. The entire collection was unexpectedly bought by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. Forbes' collection is said to have sold for $350 million.
To this day, they believe that the imperial Easter eggs "The cherubs and the carriage", "The Nessesser", "The anniversary of Denmark", "In memory of Alexander III" have been lost or stolen. Until recently, no one knew anything about yet another unique masterpiece by Fabergé.
The Rothschild egg clock, which was made in 1902 by the master craftsman of the House of Fabergé Michael Perchini. For more than 100 years they were in the private collection of this well-known billionaire family. They even thought that at the beginning of the last century the value of the "Rothschild egg" far exceeded the value of imperial Easter eggs. This particular egg had been bought by the Ephrussi family from the Fabergé House. In 1905, Beatrice Ephrussi gifted the egg to the engagement of Germaine Halfen and her younger brother, Baron Eduardo Rothschild.
Inside the egg there is a rooster made of precious stones. Every hour, he appears, spreads his wings, stretches four times, then three times bows with his head, opens his beak and sings. All this lasts 15 seconds and after that a bell rings indicating the time. At Christie's auction house in London, "Rothschild Fabergé Egg" was sold for a record 9.2 million pounds ($18.5 million). The buyer was Russian collector Alexander Ivanov. In 2014, it was donated to the State Hermitage Museum.
In Vekselberg's collection, now in the Fabergé Museum in St. Petersburg, there is a special Easter egg, "The Order of St. George." This egg, made in the spring of 1916, was ordered by Tsar Nicholas II to give as a gift to his mother, Maria Feodorovna. It was the last egg she gave as a gift to the then widowed tsarina and the only one she could take with her abroad. After Maria Feodorovna's death in 1928, it was taken by her eldest daughter, Xenia, and then, in the 60s, by Xenia's son, Vasilios. It was then bought by representatives of the Faberge company. In 1978 the egg "The Order of St. George" ended up in the Forbes collection. Almost 100 years later, he returned to Russia.
