Peter Carl Fabergé, legendary artist-jeweller, goldsmith to the Russian Imperial Court, was the creative and entrepreneurial genius behind the world-renowned company that bore his name. He captured his extraordinary moment in time through exquisite jewels and precious objects that still resonate today with the passions and poignancy of a lost world. Deeply imbued with the spirit of their age, these masterpieces remain timeless in their recherché beauty, breathtaking craftsmanship and absolute dedication to perfection. Like the swan song of a dying civilisation, Fabergé’s jewels, personal accessories and objects of fantasy, richly layered with cultural references, conjure up a vision of Belle Époque, its leisured luxury and ravishing refinement, the fabulous new wealth of tycoons and industrialists. They trace the captivating story of the tragic end of the Romanov dynasty, of the lives and loves of the ill-fated Nicholas II and Alexandra, cocooned in the lavish opulence of their court, cut off from the harsh realities of a fast-changing world and rocked by encroaching forces of darkness. French in their artistic sensibilities but with a profound and poetic Russian soul, Fabergé’s works of art, like the stories they tell, continue to exert a powerful fascination as hypnotic today as it ever was.
Born in 1846, and apprenticed as a boy to his goldsmith father, Peter Carl Fabergé was educated in St Petersburg and Dresden where he fell under the mesmerizing influence of the Renaissance and Baroque treasures in the famous Green Vaults. As a young man he travelled extensively, immersing himself in the cultural delights of the Grand Tour, including the Medici Renaissance treasures in Florence. He studied in Paris and received expert tuition from goldsmiths in France, Germany and England.
