Cherub Egg
The cherub egg is the missing fourth “imperial” Fabergé egg . It was a gift from the Russian Emperor Alexander III. to his wife Maria Feodorovna for Easter 1888.
description
Only fragmentary information is available about the cherub egg; the only contemporary illustration is a bad photo from an exhibition in 1902, in which the cherub egg is reflected in the glass pane of a display case. A reconstruction shows a cherub pulling a single-axle chariot. A decorative egg stands upright on this wagon, not much is known about its nature. Only the comparison with other early Faberge eggs and a few archival documents suggest that the egg color gold was, with diamonds in rose cut staffed and with a large sapphire was decorated. The cherub and the chariot are likely to be forged from silver .
A handwritten note with descriptions of the first Fabergé eggs from the years 1885 to 1890 names an angel pulling a cart with an egg for 1888 with a value of 1500 rubles and an angel with a clock in a golden egg for 600 rubles. The fact that two prices are mentioned indicates two different objects, but the price for the surprise contained in the hen's egg with the sapphire pendant was already stated next to the total price. That would indicate a total price of 2100 rubles, of which 600 rubles are for the surprise, a watch in a golden egg. Further notes from the imperial court attest that the egg was taken on a trip by the imperial couple to Moscow in May 1891 and returned in March 1892. The object is described as “a cherub pulling a two-wheeled cart with an egg”.
The motif of the cherub transporting precious cargo on a cart is not new. In the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian there is a pair of silver mustard pots, each lying on a cart pushed by a cherub. They were made in 1751 or 1752 by the French silversmith Antoine-Sébastien Durand , possibly based on a design by the sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet . The mustard containers were a gift from the French King Louis XV. for his mistress Madame de Pompadour . In the 18th century, figures made of valuable material, depending on the context, were to be interpreted as Cupid or Cherub and were often depicted performing different activities and carrying loads. The motif of the cherub with a handcart reached particular popularity around 1888 as a postcard motif. It is obvious that Fabergé based himself on such templates when designing the cherub egg.
exhibition
At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 , 14 of the 20 “imperial” Fabergé eggs produced up to that point were exhibited on loan from the Tsar's court, along with numerous other Fabergé objects. Only seven of them could be identified. It is not known whether the cherub egg was also shown. In March 1902, under the patronage of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, a charity exhibition with objects by Fabergé was held in the Petersburg palace of Baron Paul Pavlovich von Derwis. Numerous works of art belonging to the royal family were shown, including numerous Fabergé eggs. The exhibition was only the second presentation of “imperial” Fabergé eggs and the first in Russia. A traditional photo of a pyramid-shaped display case reveals the blurred reflection of the cherubian egg in one of the glass panes of the display case.
Provenance and whereabouts
After Nicholas II abdicated, around 40 Faberge eggs were brought to the armory of the Moscow Kremlin on behalf of the Kerensky government in mid-September 1917 . A first inventory was created in which one item reads “golden egg, decorated with diamonds, a sapphire, with a silver, gold-plated stand in the form of a cart with a putto”. There is no mention of a clock. The tsarist family was murdered in 1918. The Fabergé eggs were likely handed over to the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR in February or March 1922 . In the 1920s, numerous Fabergé eggs and other valuable objects from the possession of the tsarist family were sold by the Antikwariat , the department of the Soviet Ministry of Commerce responsible for the exploitation of cultural property. Some eggs reappeared in the international art trade. The cherub egg could have been sold in November 1934 at a sales exhibition of Imperial Russian art from the Armand Hammer collection in the Lord & Taylor luxury department store in New York . In September 1941, a lot owned by Ethel Gunton Douglas was auctioned at Parke-Bernet , the description of which roughly corresponds to the cherub egg. The further whereabouts are not known.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Annemiek Wintraecken: 1888 Cherub with Chariot Egg / Angel with Egg in Chariot. wintraecken.nl, December 14, 2019, accessed on May 9, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Fabergé Imperial Egg Chronology. In: Fabergé Research Site. 2020, accessed May 9, 2020 .
- ↑ Annemiek Wintraecken: Early Imperial Egg Exhibitions - 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle. wintraecken.nl, January 9, 2019, accessed April 10, 2020 .
- ↑ Annemiek Wintraecken: Early Imperial Egg Exhibitions. 1902 by Dervis Fabergé Exhibition, Saint Petersburg, Russia. wintraecken.nl, September 20, 2019, accessed on April 10, 2020 .