FABERGE

Peter Carl Fabergé  was a Russian jeweller. He is today best remembered for the fabulous Fabergé Imperial Eggs, made in the style of Easter eggs, using precious metals and gemstones, which he produced for the Russian Royal family.

Fabergé was born in St. Petersburg in 1846 to the jeweller Gustav Fabergé and his Danish wife Charlotte Jungstedt. Gustav Fabergé’s father’s family were Huguenots who had fled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He began his education at St. Anne's Gymnasium, the German school in St. Petersburg. In 1860, the family moved again, to Dresden, and shortly thereafter, the teenage Carl went on a study trip, learning the jeweller’s craft at the House of Friedman in Frankfurt.

In 1864, Fabergé returned to St. Petersburg and joined his father’s business, taking over its management in 1872. In 1885 Tsar Alexander III appointed him an official Court Supplier, as a reward for making him a splendid Easter egg to give to his wife. Thereafter, Fabergé made an egg each year for the Tsar to give to the Tsaritsa Maria. The next tsar, Nicholas II, ordered two eggs each year, one for his mother and one for his own wife, Alexandra, a practice which continued from 1885 to 1917.

Fabergé was also the Tsar’s Court Goldsmith. Apart from the Imperial Easter eggs, Fabergé made many other objects, ranging from silver tableware to fine jewellery. Fabergé’s company became the largest in Russia, with 500 employees and branches in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, Kiev and London. It produced some 150,000 objects between 1882 and 1917. He encouraged his workforce to pursue new ideas and techniques and the Russian aristocracy loved his jewellery. The firm produced large numbers of small brooches and belt buckles, as well as  hair combs, stick pins, buttons, and objets de vertu, many of which became especially popular in London during the Edwardian era.

In 1897 the Swedish court appointed Fabergé Court Goldsmith. In 1900 his work represented Russia at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. In 1917, amidst the chaos of the October Revolution, Fabergé sold his shares in the company to his employees and fled Russia. He went first to Finland, with assistance from the British Embassy, and then to Wiesbaden, Germany making stops in Riga, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg. Fabergé and his wife moved to Lausanne, Switzerland.

Peter Carl Fabergé died in 1920.