Fabergé

Next month a Russian businessman and collector will open the world’s first museum dedicated to the Russian Imperial jeweller Fabergé.

The falling stock markets that have dented the wealth of Russia’s rich have yet to impinge upon the appetite for the output of Karl Fabergé.

Reports of the vast sums of money lost by some Russian oligarchs in the recent financial crisis did not appear to hamper enthusiasm for a collection of Russian cloisonné sold at Freeman’s in Philadelphia on October 8.

Russian week in London saw over ten sales offered at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Bonhams and specialist Russian auctioneers MacDougall’s last week.

The highlight of a strong £500,000 sale conducted by Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on February 14 was this Fabergé silver-gilt and cloisonné enamel box. It had been given to the vendor's husband by his grandfather who had lived and worked in St Petersburg until the time of the Revolution and had met Carl Fabergé in person.

LIKE so much material where the name is so much part of the game, the exquisite objets d’art fashioned in the Russian workshops of Carl Fabergé have attracted copyists, repro-producers and outright forgers.

BEST known for their period silver by the master English silversmiths, Mayfair dealers Marks Antiques are also making a name for themselves with Fabergé, and, on February 18 and 19, hold a selling Fabergé exhibition at Martyn Cook Antiques, Queen Street, Woollahra, Sydney.

COMBINE the perennial appeal of the Fabergé name with the current demand for all things Russian and it has been no surprise to see soaring prices for pieces by this famous firm in recent seasons.

THE first quarter of 2004 was good news for Sotheby’s, with several major stepping stones to putting their bottom line back on the straight and narrow.

Sotheby’s announced last week that the Forbes Collection of Fabergé, which had been scheduled for sale at auction in New York in April, has been sold by private treaty to a prominent Russian industrialist.

Using the incentive of financial guarantees, Sotheby’s have secured two spectacular consignments for the New York spring auction calendar: the Forbes collection of Fabergé and pictures from the Whitney collection.

And now for something completely different...A high-rise flat on the outskirts of Glasgow is not the place one would expect to find works of art by the celebrated firm of Fabergé but that was the origin of the finely crafted photograph frame, right, offered on September 26 by Glasgow auctioneers McTears (15% buyer’s premium).

Twice a year Russian silver and icons are included in Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) routine miniature and vertu sales and it was the 44-lot Russian silver section that saw some of the most consistent bidding in this 587-lot July 15 outing.

SIX years after a gang stole part of the Luton Hoo Fabergé collection, a new police database succeeded in trapping one of the thieves.