You can hardly find more interesting and discrepant person in the Russian jeweller's art history then Peter Carl Faberge. His name is brightly associated with sophisticated style, refined taste, and luxury.

Peter Carl Fabergé was born in 1846 in St. Petersburg. Carl Faberge got the special artistic education of the jeweller’s craft in Paris, Versailles, and at the House of Friedman in Frankfurt. He worked in Dresden, England, and Italy; he studied jewellery art of Venetians, Saxons, and the French.

In 1872 Carl Faberge inherited the jewellery workshop of his father Gustav Faberge. And this event marked the beginning of the Great Era of Faberge.

Carl Faberge used to be a highly educated person with a perfect sense of style. His unique approach to the jewellery art ensured unfading glory to all his creations. Faberge was a very exacting manager, and there were legends that he had a special little hammer and with its help he crushed every product that he considered to be non-ideal.

At the close of the XIX century it was hard to force the way through the keen rivalry between such bright representatives of jewellery world as Julius Butti, Eduard Bolin, and Fridrich Kechli. But Carl Faberge managed to win sympathies of the court circle restoring jewelry in the Hermitage. And in 1885 he got a royal order from Alexander III - an Easter egg for Tsaritsa Maria. The shell of this egg was made of white enameled gold; inside of it a golden yolk was placed; the yolk itself hid a golden hen inside it, which had a miniature of crown with a ruby inside. Since that moment the House of Faberge produced an egg annually for the Royal family. Every imperial Faberge egg should be unique and contain a surprise.

After the death of Alexander III his son, Nicholas II, continued the tradition annually ordering one egg for his mother and one for his wife. On the whole 54 Faberge imperial Easter eggs were made and only 46 of those masterpieces survived. Seven of the eggs were made for the Kelch family of Moscow. So in general there were 69 Faberge eggs. The eggs were made of precious metals or hard stones decorated with combinations of enamel and gem stones.

Carl Faberge was the first master who made his jewelry of semiprecious materials, such as amethyst, lapis lazuli, jade, topaz, rock crystal, rhodonite, quartz, aventurine, etc. Faberge worshiped the Art and he strongly believed that it didn’t matter how many diamonds and cold contained an item it wasn’t worth a penny if it didn’t appear to be a work of art. So it was no wonder that he fearlessly combined precious materials with wood, glass, steel, etc. The firm produced a lot of practical things, for example, watches, cigar-cases, flasks, and more. The collections of animals and people statuettes are especially interesting part of Faberge jewelry. For example, statuettes of people were made of different stone rocks, thus imitating texture and color of skin, clothes, hair, etc.

During seventy years Faberge produced about 100 thousands items. The firm finished its existence after the Revolution in 1917. Family successors were trying to restore business in Paris and Geneva, but they failed to achieve former fame.

Sincerely yours
Top-Faberge.com