Schaffer Paul Essay (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: As New. Dust Jacket Condition: As New. As new condition textured black cloth boards with gold spine lettering contained in an as new condition color photographic non price-clipped dust jacket. Includes On Collecting Faberge by Malcolm S. Forbes; A Select Bibliography; Catalogue of the Forbes Magazine Collection; Acknowledgments; and Photo Credits. With more than 350 illustrations, including 80 plates in full color. The lower page edges contain a remainder mark. "An aura of magic surrounds the name of Faberge today, when his exquisitely crafted fantasies are even more avidly sought after than they were in imperial Russia, when Faberge was court jeweler to the czars. Alexander von Solodkoff, author of this book and an expert on Russian objects, formerly with Christie's, London, has seen many of the treasured Faberge pieces come up for auction. Here he tells the fascinating story of the rise of the House of Faberge and in particular of Carl Faberge, son of the founder, whom the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna once called "an incomparable genius." Indeed, it was young Carl's stroke of genius to deflect the firm's business from conventional jewelry to the elegant and amusing baubles that were the conversation pieces of their day. His flair for the imaginative and inventive was given full rein in the series of gloriously decorated Imperial Easter Eggs, each containing a miniature jeweled "surprise" - a train, a palace, a golden coronation coach. Always, this sublime playfulness was coupled with the strictest standards of superb craftsmanship. Von Solodkoff describes the royal and fashionable international clientele who bought their gifts and household trinkets at Faberge. Picture frames, boxes, parasol handles, fans, clocks, pens, bowls, and cups carved from semiprecious stones, portfolios, opera glasses, even a pair of jewelheaded knitting needles, could be found at Faberge's shops in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, and London at the turn of the century. Now collectors' items, many of these objects and nearly all of the known Imperial Easter Eggs can be found in brilliant color photographs in the pages of this book. Most of the pieces are from the Forbes Magazine Collection, the largest in the United States and one of the finest in the world. Christopher Forbes, who has himself written and edited several books on the subject, presided over this one, securing enlightening chapters by Paul Schaffer of A La Vieille Russie in New York and A. Kenneth Snowman of Wartski, London, the eminent dealers whose firms helped to form many of the outstanding Faberge collections of the world. A chapter on the reign of Russia's last czar, Nicholas II, by historian Marilyn Pfeifer Swezey illuminates not only the subject matter of the Fifteenth Anniversary Egg but also the period and world of Faberge. A complete catalogue (as of publication time) of the growing Forbes Magazine Collection, a chronology, and a list of Faberge workmasters and their marks make this a useful reference book for the collector as well as a glittering presentation of some of the most dazzling examples of the jeweler's art created in the past century." - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps.