November 25th to 1st December 2017 was Russian week in London with paintings, icons, porcelain, sculpture and jewels as well as objets d’art being offered to dealers and connoisseurs. Included were some rare, very and extremely rare pieces of Fabergé. However, not everything sold. For example, at Christie’s on 27th November 2017, an important white onyx model of a bear was left out in the cold. Purchased from Fabergé’s London shop in 1909, it was estimated at £200,000-£300,000, but failed to find a buyer.
The top price for a piece of Fabergé at this event was for another model, this time of a sedan chair in the Louis XVI style. Its varicoloured gold body is finely engraved throughout. Its six panels are enamelled in translucent salmon pink over a sunburst guilloché ground, with gold foil depicting trophies of the Arts within floral wreaths. It is further decorated with opaque white enamelled borders and enamelled emerald green rosettes at the corners.
The window panes are rock crystal engraved at the top to simulate hanging blinds. The window frames have emerald green and white enamelled guilloché-pattern bands. Its door-handle turns to open-up the interior, which is lined with mother-of-pearl. The top panel has a gold pinecone finial at each corner. Its two detachable gold poles are mounted with mother-of-pearl handles.
The piece was made by Fabergé’s workmaster Michael Perchin during the period 1899-1903. Maximillian Neuscheller, a Dutch born rubber industry magnate, initially purchased it from Fabergé. The piece, which is 3½ in (9cm) in height, sold for £788,750 with the Buyers’ Premium, against an estimate of £700,000-£1million.
This seemed to be the auction for the model, as the second highest price was for a Fabergé oxidised silver automaton of a rhinoceros. It has an interesting history as Lord Howe then Lord Chamberlain, purchased it from the London branch of Fabergé on 3 November 1909. He gifted it to Queen Alexandra as a 65th birthday present. It is believed that in turn she gifted it to her sister the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna during one of her visits to England. The Dowager is believed to have presented it to her grandson Prince Vasili Alexandrovich in November 1914 when he was seriously ill with typhoid. This ‘toy gift’ comes complete in its original velvet and silk-lined holly wood box just under 3in (7.4cm) wide. It was contested to £704,750 with the Premium, against an estimate of £300,000-400,000.
Ian Fleming wrote From Russia with Love in 1958 and the film starring Sean Connery was released in 1963. Both proved to be very popular. So did A Snowflake from Russia, in this sale. Those were the words on the original holly wood box containing the circular brooch formed on a round piece of rock crystal. It features a stylised six-pointed snowflake decorated with rose-cut diamonds, centring a brilliant cut diamond, all set in a rose-cut diamond set border. Alma Pihl, who was born into a Finnish jewellery family in 1888, designed the jewel.
Her father was Oscar Pihl who was head of Fabergé’s Moscow jewellery workshop, while her grandfather and uncle respectively were August and Albert Holmström, Fabergé head workmasters in St Petersburg. At the age of 20 Alma started working for her uncle as an artist, recording the creations made in the workshop in watercolours and adding details of the materials used as well as the cost of making each piece. She was soon promoted to the position of cost accountant.
This role was not to her liking and whenever there was a spare moment she painted jewels from her imagination. Her uncle showed these to Peter Carl Fabergé, who said that she should be appointed a designer aged just 21. Her break came in January 1911 when Dr Emanuel Nobel, who was running the family’s oil company, which at the time was the world’s largest. He was a very important Fabergé client. The doctor wanted brooches that were ‘different’. Although they had to be made of fine materials, the break-up value had to be low so they could not be interpreted as a bribe.
Alma was given the task and sat in her studio desperate for inspiration. It soon came to her as the sun was shining on the windows that made the frost patterns on the glass sparkle like jewels. So started her ‘ice’ range of jewellery based on rock crystal adorned with platinum set with small diamonds to form snowflakes or the patterns created by Jack Frost. The designs became famous and among the most imaginative of the firm. With a diameter of just over an inch (2.9cm), the example in the sale sold for £112,500, including Premium, against an estimate of £40,000-£60,000.
At Sotheby’s on 28th November, the top Fabergé lot, a jewelled gold and silver gilt mounted enamel and hardstone barometer, failed to sell. Made by the workmaster Hjalmar Armfelt during 1904-08, it is of carriage clock form and in the neoclassical taste. In its original Fabergé holly wood case it has a height of 4½in (11.5cm). It was estimated at £180,000-£250,000.
An unusual silver and enamel cigarette case in the Japanese taste had a good provenance. It was part of a cache of personal treasures deposited in a couple of pillowcases at the Swedish Legation in November 1918 on behalf of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna. A month later Sweden broke off diplomatic relations with the Russian revolutionary government. For 91-years, the whereabouts of the treasure trove was unknown until it was discovered among diplomatic holdings in Stockholm 91 years later. It was offered in 110 lots at Sotheby’s on 30 November 2009 and realised just over £7 million including Premium.
This cigarette case was offered in 2009 with an estimate of £2500-£3500. Bidding started at £7500 and quickly escalated until the hammer fell at £70,000, which was £85,200 with the Premium. The bidding was spirited throughout the sale with one cigarette case selling for £601,250 against an estimate of £25,000-£30,000. It is not unusual for lots such a ‘celebrity’ sale to be wildly above expectation. So what happened at this sale eight years later? The piece sold for £37,500 against an estimate of £30,000-£50,000.
At Bonhams on 29th November there was an attractive pair of silver mounted glass claret jugs made by Fabergé in Moscow. The glass is cut with an elaborate pattern of palm leaves, swags and a geometric design within rows of palmettes. The cast and chased silver mounts are in the neo-rococo style featuring scrolls, shell motifs and an engraved monogram and the date November 11 in Cyrillic. The pair sold for £25,000 with the Premium, the lower estimate.
Fabergé products available online and in the international boutiques.
