27 June
It’s an early start to catch the 0920hrs flight from Geneva for Newark. The Big Apple is hot and humid. Arriving early afternoon, we decide to stay in our Manhattan hotel until it is time to meet friends for dinner. We are being treated at the Robert Restaurant on top of the Museum of Arts and Design. It has splendid views of Broadway, Columbus Circus and Central Park. The menu is imaginative, the food excellent and the décor contemporary and above all, it has been designed for conversation. Tatiana is mesmerised by a video art piece by Jennifer Steinkemp entitled Orbit 2.
28 June
Lunch with Kip Forbes starts our round of official engagements in the States. Although Forbes is a publishing and media
company, in 1963 Malcolm Forbes became interested in Fabergé and at its peak under the aegis of his son, Christopher
‘Kip’ Forbes, the collection numbered about 350 pieces, making it second in size only to the Queen of England’s Fabergé Collection. Although Forbes sold the last of its major pieces in 2004, the collection is fondly remembered. Bonnie
Kirschstein, Managing Director of the Forbes Collection accompanied Kip and the four of us have a jolly good chat about
our mutual interest. Kip confirms that at one time Fabergé Eggs did travel on planes first class on their own seat. So, it’s not a
legend after all!
Afterwards we head north up Fifth Avenue to visit A La Vieille Russie, the gallery that specialises in jewellery and Russian
works of art, especially those of Peter Carl Fabergé. We catch Mark Schaffer as he leaves for Masterpiece London 2011
– at which the company is exhibiting. We chat with Paul Schaffer, who can remember when the traffic in Fifth Avenue
was two-way and selling Fabergé pieces to Lillian Pratt, whose collection was bequeathed to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
in Richmond.
Our return match with friends is at TAO on East 58th Street, one of the largest and most popular Asian restaurants in the city. A huge Buddha dominates the restaurant. The food is excellent, but it is so noisy. We head to the Beekman Tower Hotel, an
Art Deco landmark near to the UN and have our dessert and coffee enjoying the tranquillity as we gazed at the lights of
the Manhattan skyline.
29 June
We vacate our rooms after breakfast and head to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, lovingly referred to as ‘the Met’.
It is very busy as the Alexander McQueen’s exhibition Savage Beauty is attracting considerable interest – apparently, there is a four-hour queue just to get in. Our appointment is with Dr Wolfram Koeppe, Curator of European Sculpture and decorative Arts. He is joined by Dr Valeria Cafà. They greet us in the large entrance hall and we head off into the Met’s many galleries.
The Museum has very little Fabergé, but it has recently received a collection of photograph frames from Mr and Mrs
David Braver. A couple are on view in the Gallery. Having admired a superb French Art Nouveau fireplace (‘A miracle it
has survived!’ exclaims Tatiana), we head off to the Decorative Arts library. While the Met is currently lean on Fabergé, this will not be for much longer. The Matilda Geddings Grey Collection, which has been at Cheekwood for a five-year period ending June 2011, is possibly heading to the Met. This is great news. We’ll post details here when we have more information.
After lunch in the Members’ Dining Room we head to the roof with its splendid views over Central Park. We head back to our
hotel from where we proceed by road to Baltimore.
30 June
The collection of the Walters Museum of Art includes 30,000+ objects ranging from mummy masks from ancient Egypt to Art
Deco jewellery from France. The amazing fact is that 22,000 of these objects were acquired by a father and son – William and Henry Walters. During the Civil War, William took his family to live in Paris and acquired contemporary French art. Back in the States, the collection continued to grow and was later added to by Henry. Thanks to a fortune made from business interests, including railroads, it eventually spanned 55 centuries and embraced all major cultures. At his death in 1931, Henry gave the collection and Museum to the city of Baltimore, ‘for the benefit of the public’.
Of course, for us, Fabergé was the main attraction. We were met by William (Bill) Johnston, Curator Emeritus . Having been taken to the secure store to see a collection of recently gifted Russian enamels, we went to see the Fabergé on public display. Henry Walters visited Fabergé in St Petersburg, having moored his 224-foot yacht Narada on the river Neva. He purchased stone animals for himself and parasol handles for the ladies in his party. Descendants of the ladies subsequently
gifted the handles to the Museum. Of the animals, the most charming is a chimpanzee carved from agate and set with diamond eyes.
However, the highlight of the Walters’ Fabergé are two Imperial Easter Eggs – the Gatchina Palace Egg (1901) and the Rose Trellis Egg (1907). Henry Walters purchased both of these in 1930 from Alexander Polovtsov who was a superintendent at the Gatchina Palace. He left the Soviet Union in 1921 and settled in Paris where he became an antiques dealer specialising in Russian treasures. The exterior of both Eggs are a joy to behold. Only one of the Eggs’ surprises still exists – the minutely detailed four-coloured gold model of the Gatchina Palace in the Egg bearing the palace’s name.
And so it is time for lunch. Although we had asked Bill to book a restaurant of his choice, he invites us to a nearby gentlemen’s club called the West Hamilton Street Club. Founded in the 1920s, it had not changed a great deal over the years and is an absolute delight. Back at the Museum we meet with Dr Nancy Zinn and her team. She takes us through to the Chamber of Art and Wonders, commonly known as the Chamber of Wonders. A circa 1620 Flemish painting entitled The Archdukes Albert and Isabella Visiting a Collectors’ Cabinet was the inspiration for the room.
The chamber contains hundreds of natural history wonders displayed with marvels of human ingenuity from all corners of the world. There is a stuffed 12-foot alligator, a sawfish bill, an immense ‘unicorn’ horn, shells, coral, human and animal skulls, stuffed fish as well as manmade objects in gold, ivory, wood and glass. It certainly is a very special room and is considered unique in any museum. What an end to a fascinating museum visit!
Nancy recommended we eat at Charleston located at Harbour East where the Chef is Cindy Wolf. It’s said that her ‘cuisine is rooted in French fundamentals and the Low Country cooking of South Carolina, engaging both regional and international influences’. it is a recommendation that we are pleased we followed!
1 July
A day at leisure. Taking Bill’s suggestion off we go to Evergreen House, an Italianate country house, built in 1858. Purchased by the Garrett family in 1878, it underwent many alterations over the years as well additions being made. Today, Evergreen
reflects the late 19th and early 20th century lifestyle of a prominent Baltimore family (their fortune was founded on
railroads). The house is full of the items collected by successive generations of Garretts ranging from rare books to paintings
by such artists as Picasso, Degas and Modigliani. When John Work Garrett died in 1942, he left the house to The Johns
Hopkins University. Mrs Garrett died in 1952. It was a charming walk through a time capsule.
2-4 July
The journey from Baltimore to Williamsburg takes just 4½ hours. With Independence Day on the Monday it means we have a long weekend.
5 July
It is still hot and humid, despite the storms. We head north toHillwood, a mansion on the outskirts of Washington DC. One of
the homes of Marjorie Merriweather Post (the heiress of the Postum Cereal Company Limited, which after various
acquisitions, became General Foods). Upon Mrs Post’s death in 1973, she bequeathed the house and contents as well as the
grounds to the Smithsonian Institution on the proviso that it should be operated as a public museum. This presented
operational problems to the Smithsonian and the gift was returned to Mrs Post’s’ Foundation. Hillwood Estate Museum
and Gardens opened to the public in 1977.
Our friend, Alice Illich, from Sydney has arrived and after a browse round the bookshop Dr Scott Ruby, one of the curators and Anne Odom, Curator Emeritus greet us. We proceed towards Hillwood’s restaurant to meet Kate Markert the Museum’s Executive Director who is to host lunch she tells us of the changes made to Hillwood. The most significant one is that it is no longer necessary to book a guided tour, but just to turn up when one wants to visit. Human tour guides have been replaced by audio handsets. She is a great internet fan and is keen to build-up an awareness of Hillwood. After a group photograph, Kate returns to her office.
And so we go to tour the house with Anne and Scott. Apart from being a charming place to visit, the appeal of Hillwood to us of course was its Fabergé collection. Mrs Post was a great collector with a penchant for the decorative and applied arts, though she did buy some paintings. Her first love was — objects from 18th century France (the house contains a profusion of Sèvres – which she used when entertaining) and her second — objects made during Imperial Russia. Her second husband, Joseph Davies, was appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union and the Davies left for Moscow in January 1937 and stayed until the summer of 1938. During her time there she made purchases from commission shops and other special stores only open to foreigners.
Although these formed the nucleus of her collection, the greater part of it was acquired upon her return from dealers in the West. Today her Russian collection is considered the largest and most representative outside Russia. There are nearly 90 Fabergé pieces, including a circular vitrine in the Icon Room. It is here that the collection’s most important pieces by Peter Carl Fabergé are displayed: two Imperial Easter Eggs. The first is the Grisaille Egg that was given to Mrs Post by her daughter Eleanor Post in 1931. Hillwood used to call this the Cameo Egg (as its enamel panels look like cameos), but now favour the Catherine the Great Egg as the surprise it originally contained (but no more) was an automata in the form of sedan chair transporting the Empress Catherine. However, as the Egg’s pink and white panels are painted en grisaille (ie to produce a three-dimensional effect) it is now more generally known as The Grisaille Egg. The second is the Twelve Monograms Egg. Mrs Post acquired this in 1949 from a lady called Mrs G V Berchielli. It is believed that she was a friend of Mrs Frances Rosso, the American wife of the Italian Ambassador in Moscow when the Mrs Post and her then husband Joseph Davies were also in there.
Other Fabergé highlights include a gold music box enamelled with panels depicting the six palaces owned by the Yusupov family. This was a gift from Prince Felix Yusupov and his brother Nicholas to their parents on the occasion of their Silver Wedding. Then there is the silver blue enamel clock with inkwells en suite that was a gift to Grand Duke Paul from his fellow officers in the Cuirassier Guards. Another interesting timepiece is a silver one that is Fabergé’s interpretation of an 18th century clock in the rococo style attributed to James Cox, the English clockmaker. It reputedly belonged to the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna and was admired by her mother-in-law the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna. The Empress commissioned Fabergé to make a similar one for the Dowager Empress. Like the original, it takes the form of a chest of drawers with the clock itself being supported by two cherubs. However, at the sides panels open to reveal miniature portraits on ivory of the Emperor Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna. The original Cox clock is in the Walters Museum of Arts at Baltimore, which we saw last week.
There are many smaller pieces of Fabergé too – ashtrays, bell pushes, belt buckles, boxes, cane and parasol handles, cigarette cases, desk accessories, a hatpin, a crochet hook, a hair comb and of course photograph frames. Alice was particularly taken with a beautiful pink one which was perfectly catching the light on a side table in the French Drawing Room. No wonder Hillwood’s current catch-phrase in Where Fabulous Lives.
As well as the formal rooms, the tour of the house takes you into Mrs Posts’ suite (complete with jewel safe) and the 1950s kitchen with its profusion of stainless steel freezers (she had added Frosted Foods, which included the Birdseye range, to her business empire). Add the gardens – best in the Spring, but good at any time – oh, and do look out for her dogs’ graves, complete with headstones – and Hillwood makes a truly good day out with some wonderful Fabergé to look at as a bonus.
Alice and I head to Richmond, Virginia, while Tatiana returns to Williamsburg to stay with her friend.
6 July
I run through my presentation with Alice. Later we go off to lunch in Carytown, followed by some shopping. In the evening
we are driven to the preview of Fabergé Revealed at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA). Our driver takes us along
Monument Avenue, a superb example of the Grand American Avenue city planning style – very impressive. So too is Fabergé
Revealed. With just over 500 pieces of objects by Peter Carl Fabergé on display, it is the largest gathering of Fabergé on public display in the United States. As well as the VMFA collection, which has The Lillian Thomas Pratt Collection as its core, there were two significant loans, including a Fabergé Imperial Easter Egg from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection. Additionally there are noteworthy loans from the Arthur and Dorothy McFerrin Foundation Collection. In a complementary exhibition, there are more than 100 pieces from The Hodges Family Collection.
Centre stage are the VMFA’s five Fabergé Imperial Eggs from the Lillian Thomas Pratt Collection. These are the:
Revolving Miniatures Egg (1896); Peter the Great Egg (1903); Tsarevich Egg (1912); Pelican Egg (1897) and the Red Cross Egg with Imperial Portraits (1915). On loan from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection is the Napoleonic Egg (1912). Therefore six of the 13 Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs in the United States are on display at the VMFA. Each is displayed in its own glass cabinet in a way that allows the visitor to view each piece 360-degrees.
I ask Arthur (Arty) McFerrin which was his favourite piece in the exhibition. ’The Lilies of the Valley Basket from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection’, he said without hesitating. It is certainly my star of the exhibition as it is a masterpiece of craftsmanship. Regarded as Fabergé’s best flower study and after the Imperial Eggs, his best work, it was a gift to the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna in the year of her Coronation. Given the beauty of the piece, it is surprising that it was a gift from ‘the ironworks management and dealers in the Siberian iron section of the Pan-Russian Exhibition at the occasion of her visit to Nizhny Novgorod in 1896’. The nine individual plants have 19 gold stems, each one bearing pearl blossoms edged with silver set with rose-cut diamond petals. The silver has now oxidised black, but returning the silver to its original colour is a very difficult task as the chemicals needed to do this would damage the pearls. Then there are the nephrite leaves fashioned and carved with the fibrous striations The plants sit in a bed of moss formed of spun, fused, clipped and randomly-polished green and yellow gold in a basket formed from strips of gold so as to resemble wickerwork. Lilies of the Valley were the Empress’s favourite flowers. She so loved this gift – which looks so realistic – that it sat on her desk… until the Revolution of course.
7 July
It is back at the VMFA early next morning for the Press View – it is such a large exhibition that one visit is not enough! At 10.30 Scholars’ Day follows. There are some 30 attendees. In addition to those from the States, there are participants from Australia, Russia, Europe. There is a good cross section with attendees representing museum specialists, dealers, auction specialists, librarians and independent scholars. Dr Géza von Habsburg opens the morning session with Problems and Enigmas Posed by the Lillian Thomas Pratt Collection and Anne Odom closes it with Fabergé’s Moscow: Workshops: At the Cutting Edge of Modernism. Tatiana Fabergé opens the afternoon session with The Sorry Tale of an Imperial Egg, while I close it with Fabergé: Events after the Revolution.
8 July
At breakfast I meet Dan Hodges and say that I am delighted he has the silver pale blue enamel bellpush set with seed pearls and large cabochon ruby, that I used to own, in his collection. I am off on the last leg of our Fabergé tour of the United States. Tatiana stays behind.
9-10
July I can just see Lake Erie from my room. After breakfast I stroll down to the North Coast Harbour. The route takes me past the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. I take a peek inside to say I’ve been. I had no idea that it was a Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed who is widely credited with coining the phrase ‘rock and roll’ and first rock and roll concert was held in the city. Judging by the crowds, it is a very popular attraction.
It was time to move on if I was to join the noon cruise on Goodtime III. The weather was perfect for watching the world drift by. Looking at the city as we progressed up the Cuyahoga River it soon became evident how important bridges were for Cleveland – there are permanent ones, ones that swing and others that go up and down. From Lake Erie there is a good view of the entire city. Thanks to some suggestions from Maggie Wojton, the Curatorial Assistant at a Cleveland Museum of Art, I reserve a table for an early supper at Fahrenheit in the city’s historic Tremont neighbourhood. The fare was contemporary American prepared by chef Rocco Whalen and his team – very good it was too!
Sunday morning and I visit USS Cod, a World War II submarine. Goodness, did up to 97 men live and work in such cramped conditions? It was an amazing experience to explore this vintage sub. For something more spacious I head to the now retired William G Mather, the Great Lakes bulk freighter. It was the flag-ship of the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company and carried ore, coal, stone and grain. Known as ‘the boat that built Cleveland’, it was as spacious as the submarine was cramped. Explored the engine room, bridge, living quarters for the crew, officers and guests – absolutely fascinating. In the evening dined at the Glasshouse Tavern on 4th East Street. A superb meal – apparently they grow vegetables on the roof!
11 July
The last Fabergé collection to see on this trip. Thankfully I meet up with Stephen Harrison, Curator of Decorative Art and Design on the second floor of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s car park. The Museum is closed and I’m looking for the security entrance. Inside Maggie is waiting – I thank her for her restaurant suggestions.
Founded in 1913, the Museum opened to the public in 1916. In 2005 an ambitious renovation and building project began which included the demolition of additions made in 1958 and 1983, After a three-year closure the Museum reopened 19 galleries in June 2008 and the new East Wing opened a year later. The work will not be completely finished until 2013. By that date, the Museum’s total floor space will have increased by 65 per cent. Impressive!
Our first port of call is the Decorative Arts Gallery. India Early Minshall donated her Fabergé collection to the Museum and this is still the greater part of the objects by Peter Carl Fabergé at Cleveland. The highlight is the Red Cross Egg with Triptych. In the flesh, this is a breathtaking Egg. While its sister, Red Cross Egg with Imperial Portraits at VMFA is almost white, Mrs Minshall’s Red Cross Egg has a beautiful palest of blue undertone. As Stephen commented, ‘Any longer in the kiln and it too would have been white.’ It was also interesting to see an Imperial Egg displayed in its original case, though Stephen says he will periodically ring the changes.
There are some delightful objects exhibited in the two large display cases devoted to Fabergé (the Egg has a smaller third one). The Begging Poodle in agate with ruby eyes and Puppies on a Mat carved from agate, chalcedony and possibly marble are irresistible. There is a lovely group of botanical studies including cranberry and forget-me-nots, to name but two. There are four frames featuring miniatures of members of the Imperial Family, including one that displays nine. There are also miniatures of a different nature, a teapot in gold and jade, a shoe in bloodstone, gold, diamonds and silver and a bidet in gold, jade, enamel and pearls. There is also a ladybug box in gold, enamel and diamonds that is enchanting as well as much more.
Down in the secure store we look at some objects not on display. When a cabinet containing silver is opened, I cannot believe when – I see a Stuart Devlin iconic café au lait with nylon sleeves. Designed in 1959 these have become icons of 1960s British silver. I can remember when they were sold. I knew the dealer who bought the pieces had sold them to a US museum, but I did not know it was Cleveland. These are very rare items.
While walking round the Museum I enjoy seeing the displays, Alice loves this Museum and now I know why. In the evening I dine at Lola’s where Michael Symon, one of the US’s master chefs, presides. I shall never forget the foie gras mousse with strawberries, nor the dessert comprising French toast, maple syrup and bacon ice cream!
12 July
I leave the hotel for the Continental flight from Cleveland to Newark for the Geneva connection. The flight is delayed by over an hour. Thankfully the arrival gate from Cleveland and the departure gate for Geneva are in the same terminal. However, the bad news is that they could hardly be further apart. Together with a fellow passenger we run between gates and board the craft minutes before the gates close. I am greeted by Tatiana, who aware that my flight was delayed, was nevertheless waiting anxiously. The doors close and we taxi away from the stand, only to be kept waiting an hour before we take-off.
13 July
Incredibly we arrive on time in Geneva at 0845hrs – miraculously my case even arrives on the carousel! We meet friends in the arrival hall, who are there to take Tatiana to her home. I check-in for my flight to London Heathrow and arrive at my home in West London 22¼ hours after leaving the Cleveland hotel.
The Fabergé tour of the United States has been enjoyable and very interesting.
