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Faberge Eggs
Treasures of the World
© Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
◦ Mementos of a Doomed Dynasty
◦ Nicholas and Romanov Russia
◦ Nicholas and Alexandra
◦ The tragic events that followed the coronation of Nicholas II
◦ Bloody Sunday
◦ Signs of revolution
◦ The inventive young Faberge
◦ Faberge's growing fame
◦ The Faberge Imperial Easter eggs featured in the Series
◦ The House of Faberge
◦ The workshops and workmasters
◦ Faberge the man
◦ Outrageous opulence
◦ Fragile remembrances
◦ The fate of the eggs ◦
Outrageous opulence
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With every egg, Faberge outdid himself
in technique, detail or complex mechanics. Some of the world's best
examples of handcrafted automata are hidden in the jeweled shells of
the Imperial eggs. At the stroke of the hour, a ruby-eyed rooster emerges
crowing and flapping its wings from the top of the elaborately designed
Cockerel egg (1900). Faberge was known to have worked on the mechanism
of the Peacock Clock in the Winter Palace, and his familiarity with
that famous automaton no doubt inspired the creation of this egg.
"Faberge, who had traveled a lot, had absorbed all the currents,
the various artistic currents, in Paris, in Florence, in Dresden, in
London," says author Geza Von Habsburg. "He could go back
to this memory bank and select objects from it. For instance, the Bay
Tree egg in the Forbes Magazine Collection is based on an 18th century
mechanical orange tree, a French automaton, which was a fairly well-known
object which Faberge must have seen during his travels.
Other eggs that Faberge made were based on objects he saw in the imperial
treasury and used as prototypes for his first eggs." The Bay Tree
egg (1911) is laden with gemstone fruits set among carved jade leaves.
Turning one of the fruits opens the top of the egg as the tiny bellows
inside produce the sweet song of a feathered bird.
As if to bolster the Czar's self-image during his most trying times,
Faberge presented Nicholas with a series of eggs commemorating achievements
of the Romanovs. In lavish Rococo style, the Peter the Great egg (1903)
celebrated the two-hundredth anniversary of the founding St. Petersburg;
the Napoleonic egg (1912) honored the Motherland's victory over the
French general and his armies.
In 1913, the three-hundred-year rule of Russia under the House of Romanov
was recorded in the portraits encircling the Tercentenary egg (1913)
– from the founder, Mikhail Fedorovich, to Catherine the Great, and
Nicholas himself. The white enameled shell of this egg is nearly obscured
by over eleven hundred diamonds and golden symbols of royal order. Inside,
a globe of burnished steel inlaid in gold displays the frontiers of
Russia in 1613 and the vastly extended borders of Russia under Nicholas
II.
Two Eggs presented to the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna – the Winter
egg (1913) and the Grisaille egg (1914) – may best represent the height
of Faberge's career, expressions in miniature of the life of Imperial
privilege. Both were kept at Maria's favorite Anichkov Palace: one inspired
by the serene surroundings in winter; the other by the opulent embellishments
of the palace interior, where many of the ceilings are painted en grisaille.
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