Marlborough Egg
The Marlborough Egg or Pink Clock Egg with Snake is a Fabergé egg with an integrated clock that was made around 1902 in the workshop of the Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé by the goldsmith Mikhail Perchin . The egg is one of those Fabergé eggs that were made for a middle-class customer and not for a Russian emperor, but which are considered Fabergé eggs "of imperial quality" due to the precious materials and high-quality processing. The template for the Marlborough ice cream is the blue clock egg with a snake , which the Russian Emperor Nicholas II presented to his mother, the Tsar's widow Maria Feodorovna , as a present for Easter in 1895.
The egg, with a foot and without a base, is 23.5 centimeters high in the form of an urn with two handles and is made of different colored gold alloys . It is with diamonds in rose cut and beads filled with translucent pink and white decorations Email exaggerated. Inside there is a clockwork that drives a rotating white ring with the Roman numerals I to XII. A snake wrapped around the base of the egg and striving upwards serves as a pointer.
The egg belonged to Consuelo Vanderbilt , through her first marriage to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough from 1895 to 1921 Consuelo Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough . The duke couple had visited Russia in 1902 and participated in a banquet with Nicholas II. The Duchess visited the Tsar's mother in the Anitschkow Palace and was able to view the Tsarina's Fabergé collection there. Consuelo Vanderbilt bought the egg himself, not received it as a gift. After Vanderbilt's divorce in 1926, it was sold through a privately owned charity auction, to Malcolm Forbes in 1965 and to Wiktor Felixowitsch Wekselberg in 2009 . Today it is in the Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg .
background
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Pendule by Jean André Lepaute , 1774, Walters Art Museum
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Pendule by Jean Baptiste Lepaute and Pierre Henry-Lepaute, after 1775, Metropolitan Museum of Art
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In 1885 the Russian jeweler Carl Fabergé began manufacturing elaborately designed ornamental eggs, ten of which were sold to the court of the Russian Emperor Alexander III by 1894 . were sold. He gave it to his wife Maria Feodorovna every year for Easter . After the death of Alexander, his son Nicholas II continued the tradition. By 1916 another 40 eggs had been delivered and given away to Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna and Nikolaus' mother, Maria Fyodorovna. Most of the Fabergé eggs contained a surprise hidden inside, such as enamel miniatures by a court painter or a model of a ship or a carriage made from precious materials. With the clock eggs, for the first time the Third Imperial Egg for the year 1887, the built-in or associated clock is seen as the surprise.
Pendulums in the shape of an urn with a circumferential ring-shaped dial were already made in the 18th century in the vicinity of the Manufacture royale de porcelaine de Sèvres in Sèvres by the royal watchmakers Jean André Lepaute , Jean Baptiste Lepaute , Pierre Henry-Lepaute and other family members. The snake motif was used in these early clocks. In 2012, the London art auction house Bonhams auctioned a pendulum clock in the form of a royal blue porcelain urn, dated to the late 19th century, which bears a striking resemblance to the blue clock egg with a snake . There can be no doubt that Fabergé was familiar with such clocks and used them in 1995 as an inspiration for the Blue Clock Egg with Snake . This “imperial” egg was the direct model for the Marlborough egg .
description
The Marlborough egg appears like an oval urn with handles attached to the side. The egg is 235 millimeters high without the base. It is enamelled in pink on a guilloche background and has a circumferential white enamelled band above the center, which bears the Roman numerals I to XII, depicted with cut diamonds . The egg is lavishly set in diamond-set gold and rests on a metal foot with a shaft. A snake made of gold and also studded with diamonds winds around the foot and strives up to the number ring. The ring is driven by a clock mechanism housed inside the egg so that the snake acts as a pointer to the moving row of numbers. The egg with its foot again stands on a pedestal, the three white enamelled sides of which show golden symbols. On the front, under a ducal crown, is the intertwined monogram CM by Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough. The other two sides show a cornucopia and a quiver with arrows and a heart.
The egg has the Cyrillic initials of the goldsmith Michail Perchin in an oval, the Cyrillic lettering Фаберже́ ( Fabergé ), the hallmark of the official Jakow Lyapunow, as brands on the base . Perchin was Fabergé's workshop manager from 1886 until his death in 1903. There is also the number 56 with crossed anchors and scepter in the cross oval. The 56 indicates a fineness of 56 solotnik or 14 carats . Finally, a date to the year 1902 is included. The Marlborough egg comes with a container made of European holly , lined with silk and with a black imprint "Fabergé, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa".
Provenance
The Marlborough Egg was purchased by Consuelo Vanderbilt , the granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt , who was married to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1895 at the age of 18 and was named Consuelo Spencer-Churchill until her divorce in 1921 , Duchess of Marlborough was known. This makes the Marlborough egg the only “large” egg that Fabergé has sold to a US customer. During a trip to Russia in 1902, the duke couple attended a banquet with Nicholas II. Consuelo had visited the Tsar's mother in the Anitschkow Palace and was able to view the Tsarina's extensive Fabergé collection on this occasion. On Return to England After the divorce in 1921, Consuelo Vanderbilt lived in the United States again. In 1926 she donated the Fabergé egg to a charity auction at which Ganna Walska bought it.
In 1965 the egg was auctioned again at Parke-Bernet in New York City . The buyer was Malcolm Forbes , publisher of Forbes Magazine , who bought it as the first egg in his collection. His son Steve Forbes sold the then largest private Fabergé collection with nine "Imperial" eggs alone in February 2004 for more than 100 million US dollars to the Russian Viktor Felixowitsch Wekselberg . Wekselberg aims to secure Russian cultural assets that have been brought abroad and to return them to Russia. The Marlborough Egg is part of the inventory of the Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg, founded by Wekselberg and opened in November 2013 .
Exhibitions
After the Forbes collection was sold to Wekselberg, the Marlborough egg was repeatedly shown at exhibitions. From October 2005 to February 2006, all Forbes eggs were exhibited in Brussels. With “Fabergé in Zurich - Treasures of the Russian Tsar's Time”, the Fabergé eggs were shown in June and July 2006, followed by other works by Fabergé until September. From April to June 2011 took place in the Raphael Hall Vatican Pinacoteca , the "Faberge exhibition. Sacred Images ”instead.
Web links
- Duchess of Marlborough's Egg on the website of the Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg
- The Duchess of Marlborough egg , private website by Annemie Wintraecken with images and background information
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Annemiek Wintraecken: The Duchess of Marlborough Egg. wintraecken.nl, January 8, 2019, accessed on May 1, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Annemiek Wintraecken: 1895 Blue Serpent Clock Egg. wintraecken.nl, January 8, 2019, accessed on May 1, 2020 .
- ↑ Lot 20. A late 19th century French porcelain mounted ormolu cercle tournant clock. Bonhams , June 20, 2012, accessed May 1, 2020 .
- ↑ Annemiek Wintraecken: Fabergé Eggs on Exhibition 2005-2015. wintraecken.nl, January 22, 2019, accessed on May 1, 2020 .