Tea at Trianon: The Yusupov Fabergé Egg of 1907

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

The Yusupov Fabergé Egg of 1907

From Quill and Pad:

The egg made in St. Petersburg by Fabergé under workmaster Henrik Wigström – Fabergé used the word “workmaster” instead of “creative director” or even “supplier” – was given to Felix’s mother, Zinaida, the seventh princess of Yusupov, by his father, Count Felix Felixovich Sumarokov-Elston, on the occasion of their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in 1907.

Princess Zinaida Yusupov, a lady-in-waiting to two Russian empresses, owned the most significant collection of historical jewels in pre-Revolution Russia after the imperial family. When the princess fled Russia as the Revolution began, she left most of her financial assets in the country, including her collection of jewels and objets d’art, which were hidden in a secret vault in Moika Palace. Within five years the Bolsheviks had found the stash, though, and these items were sold off. The egg was likely sold by Russian officials in Paris or Berlin, and by 1949 it was owned by dealers in London, who sold it to Maurice Yves Sandoz (1892-1958) in 1953.

It went from Maurice to the collection of Edouard Marcel Sandoz (1881-1971) and finally to the Sandoz Foundation in 1995, established in 1964 by Edouard Marcel as a family foundation to encourage entrepreneurial commitment, creativity, and private initiative. The Sandoz Foundation owns Parmigiani Fleurier and a number of direct suppliers (including the controlling portion of Vaucher) as of 1996. (Read more.)