Fabergé & Vertu: Property from the Brooklyn Museum, Sold to Support Museum Collections
Fabergé & Vertu: Property from the Brooklyn Museum, Sold to Support Museum Collections
Property from the Brooklyn Museum, sold to Support Museum Collections
A FABERGÉ JEWELLED TWO-COLOUR GOLD-MOUNTED NEPHRITE AND ROCK CRYSTAL STUDY OF A DANDELION, ST PETERSBURG, CIRCA 1900
Auction Closed
December 2, 11:54 AM GMT
Estimate
120,000 - 180,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from the Brooklyn Museum, sold to Support Museum Collections
A FABERGÉ JEWELLED TWO-COLOUR GOLD-MOUNTED NEPHRITE AND ROCK CRYSTAL STUDY OF A DANDELION, ST PETERSBURG, CIRCA 1900
Formed as a single yellow gold dandelion seed-head with pink gold seeds terminating in rose-cut diamond and natural thread pappi, on a finely textured gold stem with two nephrite leaves in a tapering faceted cylindrical rock crystal vase, apparently unmarked; in a fitted leather and silk A La Vieille Russie case
height 19cm, 7 1/2in.
Helen Babbott Sanders, acquired from the above
The Brooklyn Museum, New York, bequest from the above in 1983
Exhibition catalogue Fabergé: Exhibition for the Benefit of the Scholarship Fund of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Design, New York, A La Vieille Russie, Inc., 1983, n. 458, p. 125 listed, p. 126 illustrated
G. von Habsburg, Fabergé Fantasies & Treasures, New York, 1995, pl. 33, p. 60 illustrated
Exhibition catalogue Fabergé in America, San Francisco, 1996, p. 201 illustrated
S. Harrison, E. Ducamp, J. Falino, et. al., Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique, Cleveland Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2008, n. 46, p. 183 illustrated
The popularity of Fabergé's dandelion studies is highlighted in the memoirs of one of the firm's head workmasters Franz Birbaum, written in 1919:
'The dandelions were particularly successful: their fluff was natural and fixed on a golden thread with a small, uncut diamond. The shining points of the diamond among the white fluff were marvelously successful and prevented this artificial flower from being too close a reproduction of nature.' Other famous Fabergé dandelion studies include that made for Mme Yznaga, sister of the Duchess of Manchester ('Birbaum Memoirs' in G. von Habsburg, M. Lopato, Fabergé: Imperial Jeweller, Milan, 1993, p. 458).
Employing a range of artists across Fabergé’s workshop, from stonecutters to gem-setters, flowers such as the present dandelion are a lasting testimony to the diversity and ingenuity of the firm and its thoughtful use of precious materials. As this model of dandelion reflects, simpler, more modern flowers found in the meadows and fields of Russia were often favoured by Fabergé’s clientele to elaborate blooms.
The process of making these flowers, from the cutting of the vase in rock crystal to the setting of the tiny diamonds and natural threads of the puff, was a lengthy and thoughtful one. The two-colour gold of then seed-head and the gentle lean of the flower in its pot are perfectly balanced by the movement in the carving of its nephrite leaves. The polish and the finely engraved details of these leaves was characteristic of Fabergé’s workshops. Nephrite, with its natural variations in colour was sourced and chosen from massive boulders near Lake Baikal in Siberia and the Sayan Highlands in the Altai Mountains.
Once all the intricate elements of flower studies had been carved, they were assembled in the workshop of Fabergé’s head workmaster Henrik Wigström. The leaves and gold filaments were attached to a naturalistic gold stem using the most delicate pins or by setting them in discrete pockets with a special glue. The stem itself was made to resemble its natural inspiration by using an alloy of gold and copper or silver to give it a reddish or greenish hue, respectively. The gold of the stem was then textured using engraving and embossing tools by the most accurate of craftsmen in the workshop (M. Pfeifer Swezey et. al., Fabergé Flowers, New York, 2004, pp. 71-72).