Day 214 - Faberge' Lilies-of-the-Valley
Aside from three rather odd and ugly Neoclassical statues, gallery 555 focuses on works by Faberge'. Its contents are on long-term loan from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation; Gray, who was born in 1885 and died in 1971, was one of the first American collectors of Faberge,'
I don't think I ever knew until now that Peter Carl Faberge', who built the firm's renown, took over from his father only in 1872; somehow, I thought the brand was much older. Perhaps a giveaway is the number of cigarette cases, several in shades of rose and mauve that suggest they were designed for women. A placard explains that Peter Carl transformed the company, vastly increasing its size to some 500 craftsmen and employing "streamlined production, fair pricing, and global marketing." Notwithstanding, I find it difficult to fathom how the creation of these elaborate objects could have been "streamlined" - or what "fair pricing" meant to a customer base consisting of the nouveau riche, cabinet ministers, and the royal family.
Another thing I realize is that while I greatly admire the workmanship, I don't much like many of the works, especially the Imperial Easter Eggs commissioned each year by Czar Alexander III for his wife and by his son, Czar Nicholas II, for his wife and mother. The eggs are fantastically detailed, but, to my mind, just too fussy.
On the other hand, I do like the delicate flowers of enamel, gold, jade, and other materials, set in containers of rock crystal meant to resemble water. And who wouldn't like today's object, a basket of lilies-of-the-valley? According to the label, it's considered the most important Faberge' work in the United States. Nineteen individual gold stems hung with small pearls and diamonds, nestled among leaves of jade incised to resemble veining, rise from a base of spun gold "moss". The floral display is set in a gold basket, perhaps eight inches wide, with a delicately scalloped rim and equally finely worked base. The work was a gift to the wife of Czar Nicholas II; the inscription on its base indicates that if was presented to her by the "ironworks management and dealers in the Siberian iron section." I wonder how many rubles were expended on this gift, what imperial favors the ironworks managers were seeking and what they got - and what the lives of Siberian ironworkers were like. I suspect that the term "immiserated proletariat" wouldn't be far wrong.
I also wonder how Gray amassed her collection. Were White Russian emigres eager to exchange objects for cash? And how did Gray acquire items that were in the czar's family? What happened to the family's possessions after (or before) thei family was executed, and how did these objects make their way onto the art market? As little sympathy as I have for the Russian nobility in general, I'm touched by a portrait photo of The Grand Duchess Tatiana, the second daughter of Czar Nicholas II, enclosed in a Faberge' frame. She wears a light-colored, scoopneck top that shows off a pearl choker and a pendant hanging from a longer train; her gaze is cast down, as if she is pensive or perhaps even melancholy. She was killed with the rest of her family in 1918.
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