Lily of the valley egg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lily of the valley egg , open, the pearl protruding to the right for the miniature portraits

The lily of the valley egg is an "imperial" Fabergé egg , which was made in the workshop of the Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé under the direction of the goldsmith Michail Perchin . The egg was a present for Easter in 1898 from Russian Emperor Nicholas II to his wife Alexandra Feodorovna .

The unopened 15.1 centimeter and 19.9 centimeter high egg is one of only two “imperial” Fabergé eggs designed in Art Nouveau style , along with the pansy egg given to Tsar Mother Maria Fyodorovna in 1899 . It is made from various colored gold alloys , including green gold , and is covered with pink and green translucent jewelry enamel. It is with diamonds in rose cut , rubies , pearls and lead crystal occupied. The hidden surprise consists of three portraits of Nicholas II in uniform and his two first daughters, the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatjana , which were executed in watercolor on ivory by Fabergé's chief miniaturist Johannes Zehngraf .

After the tsar's family was murdered and the tsar's mother fled into exile in Denmark, the egg came into the hands of the Soviet state and finally found its way into the London art trade. After several sales and repurchases, it was sold to Malcolm Forbes , the publisher of Forbes Magazine , in 1979 . His son sold the Fabergé collection in February 2004 to the Russian oligarch Viktor Felixowitsch Wekselberg , who brought it to the Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg, which he founded in 2013 .

background

Imperial basket of lilies of the valley, Fabergé, 1896

In 1885, the Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé began producing elaborately designed Easter eggs, of which 10 were sold to the court of the Russian Tsar Alexander III by 1894 . were sold. He gave them to his wife Maria Feodorovna on Easter . After the death of Alexander, his son Nicholas II continued the tradition. By 1916, 40 more eggs had been delivered and given away to Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna and Tsar mother Maria Feodorovna. 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.

After 13 years in the service of the Tsar, the planning and production of the eggs for Fabergé and his workshop was routine, with a design and manufacturing phase that began shortly after Easter and lasted almost until Easter the following year. The lily of the valley egg is one of only two “imperial” Fabergé eggs designed in the Art Nouveau style , alongside the pansy egg given to Tsar's mother Maria Feodorovna as a gift in 1899 . Tsarina Alexandra Fjodorovna was impressed by Art Nouveau, possibly inspired by her brother, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig von Hessen , who made Darmstadt a center of Art Nouveau at the turn of the century. Fabergé was known that the tsarina liked the colors pink, lilies of the valley and pearls. She had to like the combination realized in the lily of the valley egg , especially since it had already been well received two years earlier. At that time, as part of the All-Russian Industrial and Crafts Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod in 1896 , the tsarina received a basket of lily of the valley made by Fabergé's workshop manager August Holmström with 19 stems made of gold, silver, nephrite , pearls and diamonds. The object is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and is still considered the most significant piece of its production in the United States, ahead of several Fabergé eggs.

description

Lily of the valley egg , opened from the side

The lily of the valley egg is 15.1 centimeters unopened and 19.9 centimeters high when opened and represents an egg standing upright on four feet in the shape of bouquets of lilies of the valley . A model of the tsar's crown with two bows sits on its tip . The egg is made up of various colored gold alloys , including green gold . It is covered with pink decorative enamel on a guilloche background and divided into four segments with vertical rows of diamonds . In addition, green enamel is used for the leaves of the lily of the valley, the at least 130 flowers each consist of a pearl and their stamens are made of tiny rose-cut diamonds . The egg is set with further diamonds, also in rose cut, rubies , pearls and lead crystal . It stands on four green gold convertible feet, which seem to consist of leaves entwined with each other with veins of cut diamonds.

The hidden surprise is released by turning a gold-set pearl on the side and extending it upwards. Three oval miniatures fold apart like a fan. They each show a portrait of Nicholas II in uniform and his two first daughters, the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatjana, born in 1895 and 1897 . The portraits were done in watercolor on ivory panels by Fabergé's chief miniaturist Johannes Zehngraf . On the back of the miniatures is the date “5. April 1898 ”, which is the Orthodox Easter date in the Julian calendar . If the pearl is turned in the opposite direction, the portraits are pulled back down into the egg. The lily of the valley egg was only the third Fabergé egg with portrait miniatures as a surprise. The monogram egg from 1896 contained, as a surprise, portraits of the late Tsar Alexander III. The missing mauve egg , which was given to the Tsar's mother in 1897, contained as a (still preserved) surprise three heart-shaped miniatures of the Tsar's couple and the first-born Olga that could be unfolded into a clover leaf .

The mark of the lily of the valley egg is the Cyrillic initials of the goldsmith and workshop manager Michail Perchin in a horizontal oval. There is also the hallmark used by Fabergé in Saint Petersburg until 1899, the number 56 with crossed anchors and scepter in a horizontal oval. The 56 indicates a fineness of 56 solotnik or 14 carats . The transport container delivered with the lily of the valley egg and lined with velvet is still there.

Provenance

The lily of the valley egg was made by the jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé for 6700 silver rubles for Emperor Nicholas II . Nicholas gave it to his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna , as a present for Easter in 1898. The egg was in 1909 in Alexandra Feodorovna's study in the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg . In mid-September 1917, around 40 Fabergé eggs were brought to the armory of the Moscow Kremlin on behalf of the Kerensky government . The tsarist family was murdered in 1918. The Fabergé eggs and numerous other valuables belonging to the royal family were probably handed over to the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR in February or March 1922 . However, the lily of the valley egg is not listed in the inventories drawn up in 1917 and 1922.

In 1927 the lily of the valley egg and eight other Fabergé eggs were sold by Antikwariat , the department of the Soviet Ministry of Commerce responsible for the sale of cultural goods, to Emanuel Snowman from the Wartski art dealer , which specializes in Russian antiques and Fabergé objects . In 1934 it was transferred from the parent company in Wales to the London branch for £ 700 and sold to Charles Parsons of London on May 19, 1934 for £ 2000. It was bought back on June 8, 1935 and sold to a Mr. Hirst from London at an unknown time and price. On July 1, 1948, it was bought back by Hirst for 1,500 pounds. In March 1979, it was sold with the 1897 Coronation Egg for £ 300,000 to Malcolm Forbes , publisher of Forbes Magazine . His son Steve Forbes sold what was then the largest private Fabergé collection, with nine “imperial” eggs alone, in February 2004 for more than 100 million US dollars to the Russian oligarch Viktor Felixowitsch Wekselberg . With The Link of Times Cultural and Historical Foundation , established in 2000, Wekselberg aims to secure Russian cultural assets that have been brought abroad and to return them to Russia. The lily of the valley egg is part of the inventory of the Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg, founded by Wekselberg and opened in November 2013 .

Exhibitions

Charity exhibition, Saint Petersburg 1902, the lily of the valley egg in the front display case, second level from the bottom

At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 , 14 of the 20 “imperial” Fabergé eggs produced by then were presented to the public on loan from the Tsar's court, along with numerous other Fabergé objects. This also included the lily of the valley egg . In March 1902, under the patronage of 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 were on display, mostly from the possession of the tsarist family, including numerous Fabergé eggs. This exhibition was only the second presentation of “imperial” Fabergé eggs and the first in Russia.

From October 22, 1989 to January 7, 1990, the exhibition “Fabergé: The Imperial Eggs” took place in the San Diego Museum of Art, the largest presentation of “imperial” Fabergé eggs in decades. The lily of the valley egg was one of the eggs shown. The exhibition then traveled to Moscow in order to be shown from January 30 to March 15, 1990 as the first “foreign” exhibition ever in the armory of the Moscow Kremlin. From July to September 2009, the exhibition “Moscow. Splendors of the Romanovs ”in the Grimaldi Forum showed more than 500 objects belonging to the royal family, including the lily of the valley egg . Since 2013 it has been part of the permanent exhibition of the Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg.

Web links

Commons : Lily of the Valley Egg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Annemiek Wintraecken: 1898 Lilies of the Valley Egg. wintraecken.nl, July 11, 2019, accessed April 10, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Wolfram Koeppe: Imperial Lilies-of-the-Valley Basket 1896. 2020, accessed on April 10, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c Fabergé Imperial Egg Chronology. In: Fabergé Research Site. 2020, accessed April 10, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Alexander von Solodkoff: Workshops and Workmasters . In: Christopher Forbes (ed.): Masterpieces from the House of Fabergé . Abradale Press, New York 1989, ISBN 0-8109-8089-4 , pp. 151-159 .
  5. ↑ Alexander von Solodkoff: Marks on Faberé Objects . In: Christopher Forbes (ed.): Masterpieces from the House of Fabergé . Abradale Press, New York 1989, ISBN 0-8109-8089-4 , pp. 161-162 .
  6. ↑ A. Kenneth Snowman: Wartski and Fabergé objects . In: Christopher Forbes (ed.): Masterpieces from the House of Fabergé . Abradale Press, New York 1989, ISBN 0-8109-8089-4 , pp. 123-130 .
  7. ↑ Annemiek Wintraecken: Early Imperial Egg Exhibitions - 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle. wintraecken.nl, January 9, 2019, accessed April 10, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Annemiek Wintraecken: Early Imperial Egg Exhibitions. 1902 by Dervis Fabergé Exhibition, Saint Petersburg, Russia. wintraecken.nl, September 20, 2019, accessed on April 10, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Annemiek Wintraecken: Fabergé: The Imperial Eggs - Фаберже: Императорские яйца. wintraecken.nl, January 28, 2019, accessed April 10, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Annemiek Wintraecken: Fabergé Eggs on Exhibition 2005-2015. wintraecken.nl, January 22, 2019, accessed on April 10, 2020 .