Apple blossom egg

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Apple blossom egg

The apple blossom egg or jade box egg is a Fabergé egg that was made in the workshop of the Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé under the direction of the goldsmith Michail Perchin . The egg was a gift from Alexander Kelch to his wife, the entrepreneur and philanthropist Varvara Petrovna Basanowa , for Easter in 1901. It is the fourth of a total of seven “chalice eggs”.

The 11.5 centimeter high and 14 centimeter long egg is one of the few Fabergé eggs that were intended for horizontal presentation. It is intended as a jewelery box, to which the alternatively used name jade box egg refers. The surprise originally contained has disappeared, nothing is known about its shape. The egg consists of the mineral nephrite , red gold and green gold, also known as "Russian jade" . The flowers and the buds are made of diamonds in rose-cut and the petals of gold with translucent pale pink and white decorations Email is covered.

The apple blossom egg was donated to the Principality of Liechtenstein by its last private owner Adulf Peter Goop in 2010 and is in the Liechtenstein treasury of the Liechtenstein National Museum in Vaduz .

background

Yulia Ivanovna Basanova (center) with Varvara Petrovna Basanowa (left) and granddaughter Julia, around 1895

In 1885 the Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé began manufacturing elaborately designed Easter eggs, of which 10 had been delivered to the court of the tsars by 1894. They were gifts for the Easter of the Russian Tsar Alexander III. to his wife Maria Feodorovna . After Alexander's death, 40 more eggs were delivered by 1916 and given away by Tsar Nicholas II to Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna and Tsar mother Maria Fyodorovna. The two eggs destined for 1917 were no longer delivered. In addition to these 52 “imperial” Fabergé eggs, more than a dozen were produced for private clients, among which the seven “Chalice Eggs” given away by Alexander Kelch to his wife Varvara Petrovna Basanowa from 1898 to 1904 attracted special attention as a separate series.

Varvara Basanowa was the daughter of Yulia Ivanovna Basanova , the widowed daughter-in-law of the Irkutsk merchant and entrepreneur Ivan Ivanovich Basanow . She was first heiress of a third and, after the death of an uncle, half of the huge Bashanov fortune. In 1892 she married the impoverished nobleman Nikolai Ferdinandowitsch Kelch, and after his early death in 1894, the brother Alexander Ferdinandowitsch Kelch. The couple initially lived separately, Alexander in Saint Petersburg and Varvara in Moscow. In 1896 the couple bought a house in Saint Petersburg, which was furnished in neo-Gothic style by Carl Schmid, a cousin of Carl Fabergé. In 1898 Varvara moved into the house, and in 1900 Alexander too. One of the largest purchases for the household was a neo-Gothic centerpiece from Fabergé, which was part of the chalice service and cost the astronomical sum of 125,000 rubles alone. The “imperial” Fabergé eggs cost between 4,000 and 6,000 rubles each. The seven "goblet eggs" and the lost neo-Gothic goblet service were ultimately paid for from the assets of the recipient Basanova.

The Kelchs' fortune shrank considerably when parts of the company gradually had to be sold off during the economic crisis following the Russo-Japanese War that Russia had lost . The couple separated in 1905, Varvara moved their belongings to Paris, and the couple divorced in 1915. Alexander Kelch looked after his mother-in-law Julija Basanowa until her death in 1924. He became completely impoverished and in 1925 worked as a street seller in tobacco products in Saint Petersburg. As part of the Stalinist purges, he was deported to Siberia in 1930, where his trace is lost. Varvara Basanova died impoverished in Paris in 1959.

description

Apple blossom egg , back with hinge

The apple blossoms egg is 11.5 centimeters high and 14 centimeters in length and one of the largest one of the few lying Faberge eggs. It consists of a hollowed-out piece of nephrite or Russian jade with a very thin wall. The two halves are connected at the back with a hinge so that the upper half can be opened. The egg stands on four feet made of red and green gold, which are shaped like apple trunks with intertwined branches. The knots, knotholes and the moss were worked out in great detail. Sitting on the branches numerous apple blossoms and buds that of gold and diamonds in rose cut were made. The petals are made of silver covered with translucent pale pink and white decorative enamel.

The hollowed-out body of the apple blossom egg is cut in half lengthways, and the two parts are connected with a metal hinge on the back. The interior is lined with velvet and once contained a surprise that is now lost and about which nothing is known. The apple blossom egg has the Cyrillic initials of the goldsmith and workshop manager Michail Perchin in a cross oval. The transport container delivered with the apple blossom egg and lined with velvet is still there.

Provenance

The egg was given by Alexander Kelch to his wife, entrepreneur and philanthropist Varvara Petrovna Basanowa, as the fourth of a total of seven "Chalice Eggs" for Easter in 1901. After the couple separated in 1905, Basanova took the Fabergé eggs with her to Paris.

In 1920, six of the seven “chalice eggs”, including the apple blossom egg , were sold for a total of 48,000 francs by the Morgan jeweler in Paris' Rue de la Paix to the À la vieille Russie antique shop, which specializes in Russian art and jewelery . The company was founded in Kiev in 1851, moved to Paris with Jacques Zolotnitsky, the founder's grandson, in 1920, and has been in New York City since the late 1930s. The purchase of the "Kelch-Eier" was one of Zolotnitsky's first major acquisitions at the new company headquarters. By then the eggs had already passed through several hands and their origin from the Varvara Basanowa chalice living in Paris was no longer known. Zolotnitsky speculated that the six Fabergé eggs from Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich Romanov , the younger brother of Tsar Alexander III. , given to one of his loved ones. This incorrect assessment lived on for decades in ever new variations and temporarily led to the acceptance of the “chalice eggs”, including the apple blossom ice cream , as “imperial eggs”.

The marketing of the six “chalice eggs” was hardly possible in Paris because the hallmarks of the parts did not meet the legal requirements for the gold trade in France. In addition, many potential customers were reluctant if the provenance of the pieces could not be proven. In 1928 the six "Chalice Eggs" were sold to an unknown customer in the United States, where they were privately owned until the 1990s. On May 17, 1994, the apple blossom egg was auctioned at Christie's in Geneva for 1,213,500 Swiss francs (including buyer's premium) by an anonymous Russian buyer. As early as November 19, 1996, it was auctioned at Sotheby’s in Geneva for 1,128,740 US dollars to the collector Adulf Peter Goop from Vaduz in the Principality of Liechtenstein .

Goop donated his collections to the Principality of Liechtenstein on June 9, 2010. The most valuable pieces of the jewelry egg collection, including the apple blossom egg, are in the Liechtenstein Treasury as part of the Liechtenstein National Museum in Vaduz . A few days after the founder's death in March 2011, a Liechtenstein stamp series was published for the second time since 2001, depicting ornamental eggs. The value of 1.40 Swiss Francs shows the apple blossom egg and, like the other two values, was printed in miniature sheets of ten stamps. In addition, various philatelic products such as first day covers , maximum cards and black prints of the motif were issued.

Exhibitions

The Apple Blossom Egg was displayed in the Hammer Galleries in New York City in 1939 as part of the Presentation of Imperial Easter Gifts by Carl Fabergé . In the catalog it was called Jade Chest Egg .

From March 17 to June 12, 2011, the apple blossom egg was shown with other pieces from the Goop collection in the special exhibition The Easter Egg - a pledge of love and art object in the Liechtenstein National Museum. The apple blossom egg was the outstanding object of the exhibition A Fabergé Easter at Harrods presented in April 2014 in the Harrods department store in London . In the winter of 2014/2015 it was shown, also with other eggs from the Goop collection, in the exhibition Precious eggs uit het Tsarenrijk in the Drents Museum in Assen , the Netherlands . At the opening of the Liechtenstein Treasury in March 2015, the apple blossom egg was presented with other outstanding decorative eggs from the Goop collection.

Web links

Commons : Apple Blossom Egg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Annemiek Wintraecken: The 7 Kelch Eggs. wintraecken.nl, October 14, 2016, accessed on April 12, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Annemiek Wintraecken: Early Imperial Egg Exhibitions. 1902 by Dervis Fabergé Exhibition, Saint Petersburg, Russia. wintraecken.nl, September 20, 2019, accessed on April 10, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Annemiek Wintraecken: 1901 Apple Blossom Egg. wintraecken.nl, July 8, 2018, accessed April 12, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b c Lot 228. Property of an American collector. The "Apple Blossom Easter Egg": A highly important jeweled, enamel, four color gold-mounted nephrite easter egg. May 17, 1994, accessed April 12, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Tony Faber: Fabergé's eggs. The extraordinary story of the masterpieces that outlived an empire . Random House, New York 2008, ISBN 978-1-58836-707-5 , Chapter 16, “Determining Their Fate Irrevocably in a Few Moments”.
  6. ^ A. Kenneth Snowman: The Art of Carl Fabergé . Faber & Faber, London 1964, p. 92 .
  7. ↑ Tony Faber: Fabergé's eggs. The extraordinary story of the masterpieces that outlived an empire . Random House, New York 2008, ISBN 978-1-58836-707-5 , Chapter 17 “Pick Out Gold, Silver, and Platinum from the Articles of Minimal Museum Value”.
  8. ↑ Aurelia Frick : Congratulations! In: Liechtenstein culture letter . No. 1 , February 2011, p. 2 ( PDF [accessed June 22, 2019]).
  9. ^ Ornamental eggs from the Tsarist Empire (1890–1917) . In: Philately Liechtenstein (Ed.): Stamp issue March 14, 2011 . S. 18–22 ( philatelie.li [PDF; 4.8 MB ; accessed on April 11, 2020]).
  10. ↑ Norbert W. Hasler: The Easter egg - love pledge and art object . In: Liechtenstein culture letter . No. 1 , February 2011, p. 5–6 ( PDF [accessed June 22, 2019]).
  11. ↑ Annemiek Wintraecken: Fabergé Eggs on Exhibition 2005-2015. wintraecken.nl, January 22, 2019, accessed on April 10, 2020 .