To mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution, The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (SCVA) will stage two major exhibitions contrasting art, life and culture in Russia before and after the Revolution. The first is Royal Fabergé and the second Radical Russia, which shows how the avant-garde movement transformed Russian art and culture well before the 1917 Revolution.
From 1882 to 1917, when Peter Carl Fabergé was at the helm of the company, it has been estimated that Fabergé produced 200,000 fabulous pieces of jewellery and objets d’art. As well as the Imperial Easter Eggs, which are regarded as the pinnacles of the goldsmiths’ art and the last great series of decorative art commissions, these included objets deluxe and hardstone studies.
Royal Fabergé is probably the best exhibition of its kind to be staged in England outside London. Its highlight is the Basket of Wild Flowers Fabergé Imperial Egg, which the Emperor Nicholas II presented to his wife the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna on Easter morning 1901. Until Tatiana Fabergé and her co-authors of The Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs discovered the original invoice its provenance was doubted and some even thought is had been made by Boucheron. It is a delightful object.
The exhibition includes over 200 works including vintage films and photographs that reveal the extraordinary talents of the Fabergé craftsmen. SCVA’s location is in the county of Norfolk, which is also the location for the Sandringham Estate Edward VII purchased when he was Prince of Wales. It has been a favoured family home of the British Royal Family since the mid-19th century and has a strong Fabergé connection.
It is believed the Hon. Mrs George Keppel, Edward VII’s favourite mistress (and great-grandmother of the Duchess of Cornwall), a Fabergé afficionado, suggested the King commission Fabergé to immortalise his wife’s favourite dogs and horses in hardstones. The commission was later extended to include a whole menagerie of domestic, farm and wild animals found on the Sandringham Estate. Today, the British Royal Collection contains the largest menagerie of Fabergé animals and birds in existence. Sixty will be displayed at the exhibition.
Add other royal gifts as well as major loans from private and public collections by Fabergé and the result is a glittering array of creations orchestrated by Peter Carl Fabergé, whom the Dowager Empress Marie Fedorovna described as, ‘….the greatest genius of our time, I also told him: “Vous êtes un génie incomparable [an incomparable genius]…..”. This was in a letter dated 8 April 1914 to her sister Queen Alexandra.
Information:
The Russia Season
14 October 2017 - 11 February 2018
£12/£10.50 concessions
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ,
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 1603 593199
www.scva.ac.uk
Fabergé available online and in the international boutiques.
