British passion for "Fabergé in Lon­don: Rom­ance to Revol­ution" V & A.

In Jan 1911 Alfred Nobel’s nephew Emanuel Nobel marked important oc­c­asions in Stockholm where the weather inspired the giving of ic­ic­le art. This Fabergé patron ordered snow flake brooch­es in rock-crystal, with tiny dia­monds. The snow­flakes ev­oked the harsh winter of Russia and soon be­came a popular Fab­erge design, created by Alma Pihl. This Winter Egg was the most expen­sive egg they made.

Czar Alexander III had made Fabergé the Romanovs’ off­ic­ial court jew­eller. His son Czar Nicholas II continued the tradition and by 1900, this Russian-born goldsmith (from Fren­ch Huguenots) made Fabergé into a multi-national enterprise. It spread across several spec­­­ial­ist work­sh­ops, each headed by an expert work mas­ter.

Alexander Palace Egg was presented to Nicholas II by Fabergé, and by Nich­olas to his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feod­orovna, in Easter 1913. Nich­ol­as’ mother then gave the Easter gift to his wife Al­exandra to celebrate the centenary of the Romanov dynas­ty. The egg’s gold sur­face was adorned with ivory miniatures of all 18 Romanov rul­ers, framed with rose-cut diamonds. Alexandra (1872–1918)’s eggs were display­ed besides a selection of family items in the secl­uded Alexander Palace, their favourite home.

Fabergé’s smalls were usually gifts, circul­ating between spouses, lovers, family and colleagues from the royals and aristocracy. Snowflake brooches and white quartz flowers were ideal; the original­ity of Fab­ergé’s creations meant that they could grow the donor-recipient relation­ship. For the Romanovs, increas­ingly with­drawing into private life in resp­onse to political crises, relat­ionships were very familial. The Empress Maria Feodorov­na had been born Princess Dagmar in King Ch­rist­ian IX of Den­mark’s court and her elder favourite sister, Alexan­d­ra, had married Edward Prince of Wales in 1863. Once Maria discovered Fab­ergé, his small objects made the yearly holiday trips from Russia to Britain.

British Queen Alexandra enticed Fabergé to London, rather than fash­ionable Paris, when he decided to open his first and only branch shop outside Russia in 1903. In an office at Premier House, the new London br­anch did not advertise, and until 1911 it had no shopfront. Only th­ose who had prev­iously been introduced to Fab­ergé knew it was there; they walked upst­airs and knock­ed on a door. Once inside they could purchase everything: hard­stone figures, smoking par­aphern­al­ia, walk­ing stick handles, opera glasses and frames. Fab­er­gé’s ag­ent in London was HenryBainbridge, whose memoirs of his time with Fab­erge were the source of history about the firm’s UK business.

Jewelled nephrite frog pill, by Fabergé workmaster Michael Perkhin,
St Petersburg, sold 2019 for £225,062. Bonhams

Edward VII and Alexandra became patrons of Faberge London, then the rest of Edwardian England followed. The secl­ud­ed shop became part of the network of social relation­sh­ips. Rus­sian diplomats went to En­g­l­ish country-house parties with Fabergé tr­easur­es. The art of gift-giving was to seal relationships between elite members of society, so the pre­sents had to seem modest. The items act­ually ranged from £5 for simple silver cas­es, to thousands for jewellery.

Until 1917, Fabergé’s objects were passed on, passed down or used. Except was Queen Alex­and­ra who was found to have many ob­j­ects; nothing had been thrown away in 60 years! And Vita Sackville-West inher­it­ed many Faberge works from her mother.

See the art nouveau-inspired gold cigarette case fired with layers of blue en­amel over an engraved moiré ground, originally pres­ent­ed to Ed­ward VII by his loved mistress Alice Keppel, another Fabergé devotee. After Edward’s death in 1910, the widowed Queen Alex­andra ret­urned this love token to her ex-rival out of goodwill. Note the glitt­ering snake biting its own tail, a symbol of eternal love evoking the elite world with endless conn­ect­ions. This clearly resonated with the British royal family