Fabergé Friday

This Fabergé Friday is dedicated to my sister and her boyfriend! They breed Ball Pythons, and what do you know - in the Royal Collection I found a Fabergé snake! The little creature was made around 1910!

The little snake is carved from a piece of vari-colored agate, and it has rose-cut diamond eyes. It's dimensions are 0.2'' x 2.2'' x 1'' (0.6 x 5.7 x 2.6 cm), and it was acquired by Queen Mary.


PS. If you're interested in getting a Ball Python of your own, you can always contact my sister and her boyfriend on their snaky Facebook page, Kikkimea Reptiles, here!

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Fabergé Friday

This Friday I have three Fabergé objects for you! But even though they weren't really made to go together in a set, they fit very well together. The set consisting of three miniatures: a magnifying glass, a pencil and a patch box. They were created around the year 1900!

The magnifying glass - only 2.7'' (6.9 cm) long - is made of glass, gold, and pale yellow enamel over a guilloché ground.

The pencil was created by workmaster Karl Gustav Hjalmar Armfelt, and is only 1.7'' (4.2 cm) long. It is made of two-colored gold, with a holder covered in salmon pink enamel over a guilloché ground. It also has a gold hoop at the base.

The third item is a miniature patch box with the dimensions 0.3'' x 0.8'' x 0.6'' (0.8 x 2.1 x 1.4 cm). It is also made of gold, covered in pink enamel over a guilloché ground. The lid is decorated with a sepia caduceus, and the thumbpiece is set with rose-cut diamonds.

And here they are together. A very good example how good the quality and finish was even in Fabergé's smallest creations. They are now all part of the Royal Collection.

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Fabergé Friday

If you thought there was anything Fabergé could not do with gems and precious metals, you were wrong. Here is a miniature tea service! It was made sometime between 1896 and 1908!

The box is silver-gilt and decorated with colored gold and mauve enamel over a guilloché ground. Mauve was Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna's favorite color, and this set could have originally been an imperial commission. The lid is set with a panel of crystals. The size of the box is 0.9'' x 2.5'' x 2.5 '' (2.4 x 6.4 x 6.4 cm).

The tea service inside the box consists of a teapot, a hot water pot, a sugar bowl, and a milk jug. The set is made of gold, covered in a pale opaque bluish-white color which make them look like they were made of porcelain. All four pieces are decorated with colored gold, and the lids are topped by a cabochon ruby each. The tea service is now part of the Royal Collection, but according to a note Queen Mary's list of trinkets, it once belonged to Queen Alexandra.

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Fabergé Friday

We have now reached Imperial Easter Egg number forty-seven - the "Romanov Tercentenary Egg", from 1913!

In 1913 the 300th anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty was celebrated, and this egg was made to commemorate the event. The gold egg is faced with white transparent enamel on a guilloche background. This surface is almost covered in over 1100 diamonds and gold state symbols though. There are double-headed eagles, royal crowns, and wreathes. But there are also eighteen miniatures, framed with diamonds, of the Tsars of the house of Romanov. These are painted in watercolor on ivory by Vassily I. Zuev. At the top of the egg sits a large diamond with the years "1613" and "1913" engraved under it, and at the bottom sits a triangular diamond covering the monogram "A.F.". The portraits are as follows:

Mikhail Feodorovich 1613-1645

Alexei Mikhailovich 1645-1676

Feodor Alexeevich 1676-1682

Ivan V 1682-1696

Sofia Alexeevna 1682-1689

Peter The Great, Tsar 1682-1721,
 Emperor of Russia 1721-1725

Catharine I 1725-1727

Peter II 1727-1730

Anna Ivanova 1730-1741

Elizaveta Petrovna 1741-1761

Peter III 1761-1762

Catherine the Great 1762-1796

Paul I 1796-1802

Alexander I 1801-1825

Nicholas I 1825-1855

Alexander II 1855-1881

Alexander III 1881-1894

Nicholas II 1894-1917

The egg is held by a threefold heraldic eagle, symbolizing the power and glory of the Romanov Dynasty. The eagles are holding the Imperial scepter, orb and the Romanov sword in their talons. The purpurine base on which they stand represents the Russian Imperial shield. 

The inside of the egg is decorated with white opalescent enamel on a ground carved with guilloche ornaments. The surprise is a rotating globe, made of burnished blue steel - to represent water - and different colored gold - to represent land. The globe consists of two northern hemispheres. One half shows Russia's territory at the time when the first Romanov Tsar - Mikhail Feodorovich - entered the throne in 1613. And the other shows the territory of the Russian Empire in 1913, when Nicholas II ruled.

The "Romanov Tercentenary Egg" is one of ten Imperial Easter Eggs in the collection at the Kremlin Armory.

Fabergé Friday

Imperial Easter Egg number forty-three is: The "Fifteenth Anniversary Egg", from 1911!

This opalescent and opaque white enamel egg is like a little lesson in Russian history. It was created to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of Tsar Nicholas II's accession to the throne, and contains miniatures of nine major political events during 1911. These miniatures, painted by court miniaturist Vassily Zuiev, are put in different spaces, cut off from each other by a grid of green enamel garlands, bound together by diamond crosses.

Among the political miniatures, there are also portraits of the Tsar, the Tsarina, their five children, and highlights from important occasions in their lives together. 

The year of Nicholas' and Alexandra's wedding, 1894, and the year of the fifteenth anniversary, 1911, are set underneath the Tsaritsa's and Tsar's portraits. At the top of the egg the the crowned monogram of Alexandra sits beneath a table diamond, and at the bottom of the egg a rose-cut diamond, signed Fabergé, is set.

The Imperial children: Olga, Tatiana, Alexei, Marie and Anastasia.

The nine political events portrayed are:

The Tsar Alexander III Russian Imperial Historical Museum in St. Petersburg.

Procession to the Uspenski Cathedral.

Opening of the Alexander III Bridge in Paris.

Huis ten Bosch, the Hague.

Reception for the members of the first State Duma at the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg.

Unveiling of the monument commemorating the Bicentenary of the Battle of Poltava.

Unveiling of the statue of Peter the Great at Riga.

Moment of Coronation.

Removal of the remains of St. Seraphim of Sarovski.

If there was a surprise attached to the "Fifteenth Anniversary Egg", it is now gone. The egg was dearly treasured by Alexandra, who kept it in the Maple Room at the Alexander Palace. After being sold a few times, it ended up in the Forbes Magazine Collection, where it became Malcolm Forbes' favorite egg. In 2004 it was sold to the Vekselberg Foundation.