Just to Look At

The royal visitor, the King of Bulgaria, was impressed with many things he saw in St. Petersburg, but what impressed him most was the man named Carl Faberge. "My dear Faberge," said King Ferdinand, "if you were in Bulgaria, I would make you my minister." To which the famous court jeweler replied, "No, no, your majesty, not politics, I beg of you. But minister of the goldsmith's art, why yes, sire, if you will it."

Carl Faberge (a Russian subject who owed his name to French descent) had every right to the title, as most of Europe and much of the rest of the world knew five or six decades ago. Though officially he was jeweler to czars and czarinas, his reputation does not rest on what he made that was intended for personal adornment, but rather on objects of fantasy whose purpose was to delight the eye (see color).

No grand ducal wedding was complete without a gift made by Faberge. When he opened a branch in London, the entire court of Edward VII was soon in a dither.

At one time he had 700 men working for him, but almost every piece bore his personal touch--an intuitive mastery that used the most gaudy and expensive materials in the world and turned them into meticulous little masterpieces.

Eggs with Hens Inside. He produced everything from an image of Buddha in nephrite (a form of jade) for the King of Siam to many of the great gold and silver plates on which the major towns of Russia offered their symbolic tribute of bread and salt to the Czar. But his major works were small and intimate. One day, Czar Alexander III asked him to do something special as an Easter present for the Czarina. Faberge produced an enameled egg so pleasing that giving jeweled eggs became an Easter custom in the royal family. Each of the eggs held some surprise inside--other eggs, or perhaps a hen, or a miniature of the czarevitch. Even when Czar Nicholas II was at the front in 1916 fighting the Germans, he took time out to telegraph instructions for what turned out to be the last eggs the imperial family ever received.

One customer of the Faberge establishment in London was the former Empress Eugenie of France, who spent most of her time lamenting the loss of her empire ("I told you I died in 1870") and the loss of her youth ("I'm just a fluttering old bat"). Edward VII constantly demanded new surprises, exclaiming gruffly "We must have no duplicates!" In a single day, Faberge's biographer H. C. Bainbridge remembers, the house of Faberge played host to the King and Queen of Norway, the Kings of Denmark and Greece, and Alexandra, Edward's consort.

Miniature Monuments. Faberge was not so much the originator of new techniques as the reviver of old ones that had been neglected. The exhibition of his work on view at Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art shows both his delicacy and his range. He had complete mastery over stones like chalcedony and rhodonite, and no one has excelled him in his ability to give subtle shadings to his metals or luster to his enamels. The imperial presentation box with the portrait of Nicholas II has both red and green gold; the translucent enamels used for the tiny writing table are yellow and tawny while the opaque enamels are orange and green.

In the days of the czars, one did not offend the great, and however insatiable their demand for new riches and surprises, Faberge managed to satisfy. The result is a breathtaking array of card and cigarette boxes, parasol handles, tiny figures, and animals, bouquets, portraits, even miniature copies of great monuments. Few craftsmen have ever had to exercise such taste and tact, or to dig deeper into their imaginations for new ideas. And Edward VII need not have worried: for his royal patrons, Carl Faberge turned out no duplicates.

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