Fabergé Friday

The flowers called Bleeding Hearts in English we in Sweden call Löjtnantshärtan, which means Lieutenant Hearts. They're really pretty, and here is a sprig made by Fabergé!

The gold-stalked double spray sits in a vase of rock crystal. The flowers are carved in rhodonite and quartzite, with three sets of three carved nephrite leaves. To make the flowers as true to life as possible they are set en tremblant, which means they can move gently, as blown by the wind. The dimensions of the whole object are 7.5'' x 6'' x 2.4'' (19 x 15.3 x 6.2 cm), and it was acquired by Queen Mary in 1934. Now it is part of the Royal Collection.

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Fabergé Friday

The egg shape comes back now and again in Fabergé's creations, and here comes an egg-shaped box. It was made by workmaster Mikhail Perkhin, sometime between 1896 and 1903!

Fabergé was very influenced by the tradition of hardstone carving in Russia, and this egg is carved out of Rhodonite, a form of striated pink marble. The hinge is made of gold and decorated with a diamond-set fleur de lis. The top of the egg also has a diamond-set decoration. The egg now belongs in the Royal Collection.

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Fabergé Friday

Of all the little egg pendants Fabergé created, some were more important than others. Like the two shown below for example, made between the years 1908 and 1917!

The difference between these and the "normal" egg pendants are that these are so called "Imperial Presentation Egg Pendants", decorated with the cipher of Empress Maria Feodorovna in gold. These eggs were given personally by the Empress to female members of the Royal family and ladies-in-waiting at Easter time. Very few of these eggs have survived, and the two in this post comes from the same family, and are said to have belonged to one of the Empress' ladies-in-waiting.

The smallest of the two eggs - 0.7'' (1.9 cm) high - is carved from a piece of golden chalcedony. 

The slightly bigger one - 0.9'' (2.2 cm) high - is made of rhodonite. Siberian Rhodonite (Orletz) was one of Carl Fabergé's favorite stones.

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Fabergé Friday

Last week I showed you one of Fabergé's flower creations, so today I thought we'd continue with some berries. Raspberries to be exact! This one was created around the year 1900!

You could almost believe this was a real twig, just cut from a bush and placed in a glass of water. But no. The ripening raspberries are made of rhodonite, surrounded by nephrite leaves attached to a gold stem. The "water filled" glass is cut from a piece of rock crystal. The dimensions of the creation is 6.3'' x 3.1'' x 2.6'' (15.9 x 7.8 x 6.7 cm). Since 1953 it can be found in the Royal Collection. 

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