This is what Carl Fabergé wrote in a letter that was intercepted by state authorities shortly after the first of 1917’s two revolutions the initial revolt resulting in the appointment of a provisional government known as the ‘Duma’, which planned for democratic elections. The story of how the Revolution destroyed Fabergé and scattered his bejewelled eggs across the world for nigh on a century can be encapsulated in one phrase: “Everything seems sad”. The Moscow Kremlin Egg, Fabergé, 1906 © The Moscow Kremlin Museums In translucent lime green enamel, trellised in gold, and crowned and studded with diamonds, the five inch-high egg opens to reveal a working model of the Coronation coach in yellow gold and rose diamonds. Ingenious in design, the eggs were the fullest manifestation of Carl and his team’s devotion to ingenuity and quality perhaps reaching its highest point with the famous 1897 egg given to Tsarina Alexandra.
Using gems, glass, wood and precious metals, the flamboyant and occasionally outright garish Fabergé style reached its zenith with the Easter eggs. The Fabergé firm, founded by Carl’s father in 1842, had developed a global reputation for creating cigarette cases, vases, picture frames, clocks and crucifixes. While millions of Russians went hungry or were killed during the seemingly interminable Great War with Germany, the Romanov’s had a royal yacht with an on board cow, so that the family could enjoy fresh milk each morning. These bejewelled creations – 69 are thought to have been produced by the end of Nicholas II’s reign – were highly symbolic of the rarefied world in which the ruling family existed. The Alexander Palace Egg, Fabergé, 1908, chief workmaster Henrik Wigström © The Moscow Kremlin Museums Petersburg-based jewellery company was commissioned by the ruling Tsar to create Easter eggs for his beloved Tsarina. When Nicholas II, who would be Russia’s last Tsar, came to the throne, he continued the tradition, asking Carl Fabergé to make eggs for the new Tsarina Alexandra, as well as his mother. Kitsch, extravagant and with its origins in organised religion, it would be hard to think of a single artefact that better symbolised everything the Bolsheviks wanted to destroy than the Fabergé egg.Įvery Easter from 1885 until 1917, when the Russian Revolution began, the eponymous St. These are the words, according to sources from the time, that the founder of arguably the world’s greatest jewellery firm uttered before his empire was lost to communism.
“Give me 10 minutes to put on my hat and coat,” he said. Hen the men finally came, armed and drunk on ideological fervour, Carl Fabergé knew better than to try and resist.
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