June 23, 2015

Faberge Documentary is a Jewel


Faberge Documentary is a Jewel
The Twelve Monogram Egg (also known as the Alexander III Portraits Egg), Fabergé,1896 [Photo credit: Arts Alliance]

Fabergé: A Life of Its Own

Arts Alliance 


It is nice to come across a documentary about Russia that is not all Sturm and Drang, Stalin and Purges, mafia and Putin. Yes, those negative aspects are an important part of Russian reality, but history is long and it has many stories to tell, far from all of them depressing.

The story of Peter Carl Fabergé and the jewelry empire he built is a truly remarkable story, and it is the focus of this new documentary from Arts Alliance. It is a lushly crafted, beautifully filmed documentary, full of glowing images of St. Petersburg and soaring Russian overtures. And it nicely weaves the arc of Fabergé’s tale into the broader context of the momentous Russian events of the 1880s-1920s.

The Fabergé story is one of commercial success and imperial excess, of an art restorer who went on to create a jewelry powerhouse in St. Petersburg, catering to the rich and famous, and especially to the Russian court.

Trained in Dresden and apprenticed in St. Petersburg, Carl Fabergé came to the attention of the imperial court in the 1880s and soon his workshop was making gifts and trinkets for those in the highest orbits of court life, satisfying the needs of a high society where, as one expert notes, “Fabergé gifts were extremely emotional. It was all about the extraordinary...”

The Imperial Family of Russia in Fabergé frame, photograph c1914

The first Fabergé Easter Egg was crafted in 1887, and some 50 would follow, including an unfinished one from 1917 (the Pearl Egg) that was only recently discovered for what it was in a Moscow mineral museum. 

Its workshop shuttered in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Fabergé family was forced to flee to Lausanne, Switzerland, where Carl died just a few years later. A worker looking at the closed St. Petersburg workshop that had once housed hundreds of the world’s finest craftsmen, remarked that “it was as though we had lost a dearly loved relative.”

Ironically, it was the forced emigration of Fabergé, the murder of the tsarist family, and the dire straits of Russian nobility in Paris (forced to sell off their precious snuff boxes and jewels) that brought the workshop’s art to the attention of a wider audience. That and the efforts of one Armand Hammer, who had parleyed his connections with the Kremlin into a tsar’s ransom of jewelry and eggs that he began selling off to the likes of Pratt, Post and Forbes. 

The Third Imperial Egg, Fabergé, 1887. Presented by Tsar Alexander III to Tsarina Maria Feodorvna, Easter 1887. 'Rediscovered' in USA, 2014.

“The love of Fabergé is an addiction,” one interviewee in the film notes, while another confirms the diagnosis by calling one egg “the closest thing that a group of men have come to perfection on Earth.”

 

Detail of Third Imperial Egg, showing sapphire and rose diamonds; and coloured gold garlands.

Perfection or no, the historical Fabergé brand carries within it a dissonant duality: one of amazing beauty and mindless excess. The film does not gloss over this fact and historians point out the gaping chasm that separated Russia’s tiny, spendthrift nobility and the huge society they fed off, how even in the dark days of the First World War, Fabergé had a difficult time keeping up with orders for its luxury goods (demand straitened by the fact that many of the firm’s workers were being called off to war).

In 2009, the historical Fabergé brand (separate from the mass market shampoo and home products line) was resurrected as a modern jewelry brand. In fact, some of the most fascinating B-roll scenes from the film are taken from the modern factory, where finely tuned lathes shave a hair’s breadth of silver off of a sphere, and goldsmiths work much as they did in Fabergé’s day, only perhaps with better lighting.

The film ends with an old Chevy truck trundling down an American highway. And we are told – in something between the dulcet tones of an NPR broadcast and the “What do you think it is worth?” style of Antique Roadshow – how an American scrap metal dealer “in a small town in America” acquired a tiny golden egg for $14,000, intending to melt it down for its component metals. 

The Bismarck Box, Fabergé, 1884. Incorporates a miniature portrait of Tsar Alexander III and red sunburst enamel. Presented by the Tsar to Prince von Bismarck, 1884.

Only problem was, the value of the egg’s metals turned out to be far less than what he had paid. Luckily for him, chance intervened (internet+obscure news article) and his hopeless treasure was discovered to be the third Fabergé egg ever made (1887) and worth something north of $20 million. 

As with many things, fine art has nothing to do with the cost of the materials that goes into its creation. And the best art often has a fascinating back story.

The documentary is in theaters starting June 29. View the trailer here.

 
{All photos courtesy of Arts Alliance.}
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.  
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955