John Andrew, who became one of the founding members of The Fabergé Heritage Council in 2007, takes the opportunity to divulge some information on Peter Carl Fabergé’s father, Gustav Fabergé, but first he explains how the Fabergé Family’s name started off as Favri in 1685 and after five changes landed up as Fabergé in 1842.
“All that has been written about the House of Fabergé has somewhat ignored the role played by Peter Carl Fabergé’s father, Gustav Fabergé. He was a Baltic German who was born on 18 February 1814 in Pernau (now Pärnu) in Livonia (the present-day Estonia). Had there been no Gustav, the simple fact of the matter would be that there would have been no Peter Carl Fabergé. Additionally, it was Gustav who created the business that Peter Carl turned into an international phenomenon. Furthermore, Gustav did everything in his power to ensure that Peter Carl not only inherited the business, but was in a position to work wonders when he had done so.
However, to fully understand matters, we must go back to the beginning. While Gustav was a Baltic German we must know more of the family. For a start, they were not German, but French. They were Huguenots who lived in the small village of La Bouteille in the Picardy region of Northern France approximately 90km north of Reims. Although ‘La Bouteille’ sounds idyllic, when Tatiana Fabergé visited to see where her ancestors had originated, she was very disappointed.
Not a great deal is known of the family in the 17th century and we have no idea of the positions they held. They may have been merchants, farmers, skilled workers, or indeed simply labourers. What we do know is that in the 17th century their surname was Favri and their religion was Protestant. Papers held in the Fabergé Family Archives reveal that their name changed through the years to Favry, Fabri, Fabrier, Faberg and penultimately to Faberge – note there is no acute accent at the end of the latter yet. In the past, it was thought that the name changes were to conceal their identity. This was not the case, but instead a natural evolvement of a name over time.
Why did the early Favris leave France? They were fugitives because they were the subject of religious persecution. In 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes. The Huguenot movement of French Protestants developed during the 16th century and experienced persecution from an early stage. In 1598, Henry IV promulgated a law at Nantes which gave his Protestant subjects a large amount of religious freedom. Known as the Edict of Nantes, it also gave Huguenots full civil rights and established a special court to deal with disputes arising from the Edict. Although the Catholics tended to interpret the law very strictly, it at least gave the Huguenots a certain degree of protection.
When the Edict was revoked, it deprived the French Protestants not only of religious liberty, but also all their civil freedom. Such a situation was intolerable and over a few years from 1685, France lost around a quarter of a million of its Protestant citizens. Primarily, they fled to England, the Netherlands, Prussia or America. The Favri family from La Bouteille first sought refuge in northeastern Germany at Brandenberg and later at Schwedt-on-Oder (northeast of Berlin). Their exact date of arrival is undocumented. However, it is known that. in the last quarter of the 18th century Jean Favry (note the subtle change in spelling) was employed there as a tobacco grower. In 1796 Pierre Favry a master cabinetmaker from Schwedt-on-Oder had registered in Pernau in Livonia as Peter Fabrier, where his occupation was downgraded to joiner. He married Maria-Louisa Elsner in that year. They were the parents of Gustav Fabergé.
There was a problem pronouncing and spelling the Fabrier surname in Russian from the very beginning. In the marriage ledgers of Peter and Maria-Louisa at Pernau’s town hall it was ‘germanised’ into Faberg (with a hard ‘g’). Indeed, by 1808 in Pernau, people were addressing Peter as Peter Faberg. The couple’s second daughter, Catharina Jacobine Fabrier changed her maiden name on her marriage ledger in 1826 to Faberge (no doubt preferring a soft ‘g’). This was the first time Faberge had appeared on any official document.
Peter and Maria-Louisa had four daughters and two sons from 1798 through to 1814. One daughter died at three years and one son was stillborn. The last to arrive was Peter Gustav Fabrier. We know nothing of his early years, save that in 1828 while a teenager he adopted the surname Faberge. ‘Around 1830’ to quote Fabergé: A Comprehensive Reference Book, Gustav set off to St Petersburg to train as a goldsmith. Traditionally Huguenots were fine craftsmen. Whether Gustav’s genes had relayed this to him, or whether he had learnt about the wonders of St Petersburg from an acquaintance, we shall never know. Whatever the trigger, Gustav left Pärnu for Russia’s capital to serve an apprenticeship with a goldsmith named Andreas Ferdinand Spiegel, who was possibly just starting his business for according to the Palazzo Coronini Cronberg Foundation in Gorizia, Italy, Spiegel was, ‘active in St Petersburg between 1830 and 1862’ and that he was also known for being the teacher of Gustav Fabergé’. His apprenticeship over, he stayed in St Petersburg.
He obtained a position at the firm of Keibel established in St Petersburg by the German Otto Samuel Keibel in 1797. The company produced jewellery and objects in gold and silver and supplied presentation pieces, including swords and field-marshall batons. Otto died unexpectedly in 1809 and although his son Johann Wilhelm Kiebel had been superbly trained by his father, it was a further two years before he received the status of jeweller. When Gustav joined the firm in circa 1836 Johann had a business that was buzzing. Five years later was a great year for Keibel and Gustav. In 1841 the firm was awarded the title ‘Court Goldsmith’ and Gustav had earned the title ‘Master Goldsmith’. Gustav’s next challenge was to open a jeweller’s shop.
The 11 years or so Gustav spent in St Petersburg to become a ‘Master Goldsmith’ would have been a real eye-opener. Founded by Peter the Great in 1703 as his ‘Window on the West’, its situation on the Baltic Sea connected Russia to many European countries by boat which was far easier than journeying by land from Moscow. From 1713 to 1917 (apart from 1728-9) it was the capital of Russia. During the reign of Catherine the Great (1762-1796), the tradition of inviting the best overseas artists, architects and cultural individuals to work in the country was continued by her. The result was St Petersburg soon attained the status of a great European capital. What Gustav would have ascertained is that old Russia was very keen on the French. During Catherine’s reign the aristocracy adopted not only the French language but also its culture. Talented individuals with Gallic origins were more likely to thrive in the ‘aristocratic’ St Petersburg. This undoubtedly made an impression on the young Gustav.
Gustav’s jewellery shop opened in 1842 in St Peterburg’s fashionable Bolshaya Morskaya Street at basement level. Although christened Peter Gustav Fabrier, he dropped the Peter (his father had changed his name from Pierre Favry to Peter Faberg) and following his sister’s approach of adding an ‘e’ to Faberg, but with a very subtle difference, an acute accent to the ‘e’ resulting in Gustav Fabergé. There is no doubt that Fabergé is ‘very French’. Tatiana Fabergé also maintained that it was very clever as a ‘g’ in Russian is pronounced ‘jay’, which is the same as ‘gé’ in French. However, why did he not drop ‘Gustav’ and revert Peter to Pierre and call himself ‘Pierre Fabergé’? Gustav is of Swedish origin (Gustaf), but it is also used in German-speaking countries as well as the Low Countries (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg). The name could have been retained by Gustav in acknowledgement of the shelter Germany gave to the family when they were forced to flee from France.
1842 was a busy year for Gustav because he also married. His wife was Charlotte Jungstedt, the daughter of Carl Jungstedt, a fine painter of Danish origin. On 18 May 1846 their first son was born. He was christened by Russian tradition Peter Carl Gustavovitch but later was better known globally as Peter Carl Fabergé. Although little is known of Gustav’s business, it must have been very profitable as his son was sent to the fashionable Annenschule. The institution was run on German principles, further indicating that the senior Fabergé appeared to favour the Germanic approach to life. Peter Carl did not perform well and was moved to another unknown school. It was clear from the beginning that Peter Carl was destined to join his father’s business.
Gustav had the foresight to give his son the broadest possible training and experiences possible. Initially, the young Peter Carl was trained ‘in-house’ by Hiskias Pendin, a gentleman of Finnish origin who originally trained as an optician and afterwards as a jeweller. He imparted the knowledge he had gained during his second career to his young charge. Together they explored the techniques of the goldsmith as well as the retailing side of the business. Gustav retired aged 46 in 1860 and the family moved to Dresden leaving the business in the hands of capable and trusted managers.
Peter Carl was enrolled in Dresden’s Handelslehranstalt school and no doubt visited the Historisches Grünes Gewölbe (Historic Green Vault) to see its many treasures. This was followed by an apprenticeship with the well-known goldsmith Josef Friedmann in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The period he studied with Friedmann is not known. The final and exceptional ‘training’ for Peter Carl was a two-year jaunt around Europe visiting museums, libraries, art galleries, stately homes, palaces and of course craftsmen of his choice. This took place from 1862-1864. Although such a generous offering could be abused, I think it is safe to say that Peter Carl Fabergé got the most he could out of his travels. He even completed a course at Schloss’s Commercial College in Paris.
In 1866 having completed his Grand Tour, Carl aged 20 returns to St Petersburg. For the following 16 years, his father’s trusted workmaster Hiskias Pendin continued to act as his mentor and tutor. Until 1881, his education continued by working at the Hermitage where the Imperial Collection embracing outstanding examples of the goldsmiths’ art is still housed. He became responsible for cataloguing, restoring and repairing the Scythian gold treasures of the 7th to 4th centuries BC. This allowed him to study the forgotten techniques mastered by goldsmiths in antiquity. He later restored and repaired the 18th century objets d’art in the Collection including the exquisite French gold and enamel snuff boxes. During this period seeds were undoubtedly sown in his mind for using the past genre for contemporary objects.
In 1882 upon the death of Hiskias Pendin, Peter Carl Fabergé takes sole responsibility for running the company. Carl is awarded the title Master Goldsmith, which permits him to use his own hallmark in addition to that of the firm. Peter Carl’s reputation was so high that the normal three-day examination was waived. His brother Agathon, an extremely talented designer with a rich vein of creativity, joined the business from Dresden where he had also studied at the Handelslehranstalt.”
John Andrew, Fabergé Heritage Council
