House of Fabergé

The House of Fabergé (French pronunciation:[fabɛʁʒe]; Russian: Дом Фаберже) was a jewellery firm founded in 1842 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, by Gustav Faberge, using the accented name Fabergé. Gustav's sons – Peter Carl and Agathon – and grandsons followed him in running the business until it was nationalised by the Bolsheviks in 1918. The firm was famous for designing elaborate jewel-encrusted Fabergé eggs for the Russian Tsars, and for a range of other work of high quality and intricate detail. In 1924, Peter Carl's sons Alexander and Eugène Fabergé opened a firm called Fabergé & Cie in Paris, France, making similar jewellery items and adding the name of the city to their firm's stamp, styling it FABERGÉ, PARIS.
In 1951, rights to the Fabergé brand name for the marketing of perfume were bought by Samuel Rubin. In 1964, Rubin sold his Fabergé Inc. company to cosmetics firm Rayette Inc., which changed its name to Rayette-Fabergé Inc. As the brand was resold more times, companies using the Fabergé name launched clothing lines, the cologne Brut(which became the best-selling cologne at the time), the perfume Babe, hair products, and also undertook film production. The brand changed hands additional times, and jewellery was eventually added back to the product lines. Next to branded Fabergé items, the world market has been continuously supplied with imitation "Fauxbergé" objects and "Fabergé-style" products. Today, the brand is owned by a company called Fabergé Limited and is used solely for jewellery items and gem stones.
== Early Years==
The Fabergé family's origins can be traced back to 17th-century France, under the name Favri. The Favris lived at the village of La Bouteille in the Picardy region of northern France. However, they fled the country during or shortly after 1685 because of religious persecution following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. An estimated 250,000 fellow Huguenots, as the movement of French Protestants was known, became refugees.
During the family's progress eastward through Europe, its name changed progressively from Favri through Favry, Fabri, Fabrier, Faberges and then to Faberge without an accent. At Schwedt-on-Oder northeast of Berlin, in the second half of the 18th century, a Jean Favri (subsequently Favry) is known to have been employed as a tobacco planter. By 1800, an artisan called Pierre Favry (later Peter Fabrier) had settled in Pärnu, in the Baltic province of Livonia (now Estonia). A Gustav Fabrier was born there in 1814. By 1825, the family's name had evolved to "Faberge".
In the 1830s, Gustav Faberge moved to Saint Petersburg to train as a goldsmith under Andreas Ferdinand Spiegel, who specialised in making gold boxes. Later, he continued his training with the celebrated firm of Keibel, goldsmiths and jewellers to the Tsars. In 1841, his apprenticeship over, Gustav Faberge earned the title of Master Goldsmith.
===Launch===
In 1842, Gustav Faberge opened a shop named Fabergé as a jewellery store in a basement. Adding a diacritic to the name's final e may have been an attempt to give the name a more explicitly French character, to appeal to the Russian nobility's Francophilia. French was the official language of Russia's royal court, it was widely used by the country's aristocracy, and Russia's upper classes associated France with luxury goods.
Later that year, Gustav married Charlotte Jungstedt, the daughter of Carl Jungstedt, an artist of Danish origin. In 1846, the couple had a son, Peter Carl Fabergé, popularly known as Carl Fabergé.
===Carl Fabergé===
Carl Fabergé was educated at the Gymnasium of St Anne's. This was a fashionable establishment for the sons of the affluent middle classes and the lower echelons of the nobility, providing an indication of the success of his father's business. Gustav Fabergé retired to Dresden in 1860, leaving the firm in the hands of managers outside of the Fabergé family while his son continued his education. The young Carl undertook a business course at the Dresden Handelsschule. At the age of 18, he embarked on a Grand Tour. He received tuition from respected goldsmiths in Frankfurt, France and England, attended a course at Schloss's Commercial College in Paris and viewed the objects in the galleries of Europe's leading museums.
Carl returned to Saint Petersburg in 1872, aged 26 years. For the following ten years, his father's workmaster, Hiskias Pendin, acted as his mentor and tutor. In 1881, the firm moved to larger street-level premises at 16/18 Bolshaia Morskaia. Following Pendin's death in 1882, Carl took over the running of the firm. Three other significant events happened that year. He was awarded the title of Master Goldsmith. Agathon Fabergé, his younger brother by 16 years, joined the business. While Agathon's education was restricted to Dresden, he was noted as a talented designer who provided the business with fresh impetus, until his death 13 years later.
==Rise to prominence==
Following Carl's involvement with repairing and restoring objects in the Hermitage Museum, the firm was invited to exhibit at the Pan-Russian Exhibition in Moscow. One of the Fabergé pieces displayed at the exhibition was a replica of a 4th-century BC gold bangle from the Scythian Treasure in the Hermitage Museum. Tsar Alexander III declared that he could not distinguish Fabergé's work from the original. He ordered that specimens of work by the House of Fabergé should be displayed in the Hermitage Museum as examples of superb contemporary Russian craftsmanship. In 1885, the House of Fabergé was bestowed with the coveted title "Goldsmith by special appointment to the Imperial Crown", beginning an association with the Russian tsars.
===The Imperial Easter eggs===
The Moscow Kremlin egg, 1906
In 1885, Tsar Alexander III commissioned the House of Fabergé to make an Easter egg as a gift for his wife, the Empress Maria Feodorovna. Its "shell" is enamelled on gold to represent a normal hen's egg. This pulls apart to reveal a gold yolk, which in turn opens to produce a gold chicken that also opens to reveal a replica of the Imperial Crown from which a miniature ruby egg was suspended. Although the Crown and the miniature egg have been lost, the rest of the Hen Egg as it is known is now in the collection of Victor Vekselberg.
The tradition of the Tsar giving his Empress a surprise Easter egg by Carl Fabergé continued. From 1887, it appears that Carl Fabergé was given complete freedom as to the design of the Imperial Easter eggs as they became more elaborate. According to the Fabergé Family tradition, not even the Tsar knew what egg form they would take: the only stipulation was that each one should contain a surprise. The House of Fabergé completed 50 Imperial eggs for Alexander III to present to his Empress and for Nicholas II to present to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and his wife the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Of these, 43 are known to have survived.
===Hardstone sculptures===
Purple amethyst cane handle by Fabergé with white enamel, rose and yellow gold, and a string of pearls. Circa 1890–1898
Amongst Fabergé's more popular creations were the miniature hardstone carvings of people, animals and flowers carved from semi-precious or hardstones and embellished with precious metals and stones. The most common animal carvings were elephants and pigs but included custom made miniatures of pets of the British Royal family and other notables. The flower sculptures were complete figural tableaus, which included small vases in which carved flowers were permanently set, the vase and "water" were done in clear rock crystal (quartz) and the flowers in various hardstones and enamel. The figures were typically only 25–75 mm long or wide, with some larger and more rare figurines reaching 140–200 mm tall,[8] and were collected throughout the world; the British Royal family has over 250 items in the Royal Collection, including pieces made by Michael Perkhin and Henrik Wigström. Other important Fabergé miniature collectors were Marjorie Merriweather Post, her niece Barbara Hutton and even Fabergé's competitor Cartier, who in 1910 purchased a pink jade pig and a carnelian (agate) fox with cabochon ruby eyes set in gold.
===Other Fabergé creations===
The House of Fabergé also stocked a full range of jewellery and other ornamental objects. There were enamelled gold and silver gilt, as well as wooden photograph frames; gold and silver boxes; desk sets, walking sticks, doorbells and timepieces. Quality was assured by every article made being approved by Carl Fabergé, or in his absence by his eldest son Eugène, before it was placed into stock. The minutest of faults would result in rejection.
==Continued expansion==
The House of Fabergé won international awards and became Russia's largest jewellery firm employing some 500 craftsmen and designers. In the early 20th century, the headquarters of the House of Fabergé moved to a purpose-built, four-storey building in Bolshaia Morskaia. Branches were also opened in Moscow, Odessa, Kiev and London. From England, the company made annual visits to the Far East.
==After the Revolution==
The House of Fabergé was nationalised by the Bolsheviks in 1918. In early October, Carl Fabergé left Petrograd on the last diplomatic train for Riga. The revolution in Latvia started in the middle of the following month, and Carl was again fleeing for his life to Germany, first to Bad Homburg and then to Wiesbaden. The Bolsheviks imprisoned his sons Agathon and Alexander. Initially, Agathon was released to value the treasures seized from the imperial family, the aristocrats, wealthy merchants and Fabergé, amongst other jewellers. He was again imprisoned when the Bolsheviks found it difficult to sell this treasure at Agathon's valuations. With Europe awash with Russian jewels, prices had fallen. Madame Fabergé and her eldest son, Eugène, avoided capture by escaping under the cover of darkness through the snow-covered woods by sleigh and on foot. Towards the end of December 1918, they had crossed the border into the safety of Finland.
Meanwhile in Germany, Carl Fabergé became seriously ill. Eugène reached Wiesbaden in June 1920 and accompanied his father to Switzerland, where other members of the family had taken refuge. Carl Fabergé died in Lausanne on 24 September 1920. His wife died in January 1925. Although Alexander managed to escape from prison when a friend bribed guards, Agathon did not succeed in making his escape from the USSR until November 1927 when he, his wife Maria and son Oleg, together with four helpers, escaped by sleigh under cover of darkness across the frozen Gulf of Finland. Agathon and his family spent the rest of their lives in Finland.
===Fabergé & Cie===
In 1924, Alexander and Eugène opened Fabergé & Cie in Paris, where they had a modest success making the types of items that their father retailed years before. To distinguish their pieces from those made in Russia before the Revolution, they used the trademark FABERGÉ, PARIS, whereas the Russian company's trademark was just FABERGÉ. They also sold jewellery and had a sideline repairing and restoring the items that had been made by the original House of Fabergé.
Fabergé & Cie lost a legal case in Hong Kong in 1984, in a dispute with Fabergé Inc. over trademark rights in the use of the name 'Fabergé' for jewellery. Fabergé & Cie continued to operate in Paris until 2001.
==Reputation==
The reputation of Fabergé as a producer of the highest standard was maintained by publications and major exhibitions, such as those at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1994 and the Royal Collection in 2003–4.
Following the end of the Soviet Union and the rise of the oligarchs, Russian collectors sought to repatriate many of Fabergé's works, and auction prices reached record highs. On 27 November 2007, the Rothschild Fabergé Egg was auctioned at Christie's in London for £8.98 million. The Rothschild Fabergé egg became the record price for a piece of Fabergé, as well as the highest price ever paid for a Russian object and the most expensive price for a timepiece. 
Many celebrities and billionaires collect Fabergé pieces, Joan Rivers, estate sold $2.2 million worth of Fabergé at auction.
==Trivia==
*House of Bolin and House of Marchakwas the main competitor of House of Fabergé.
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