Carl Fabergé

Peter Carl Fabergé learnt from the great masters of his guild

Peter Carl Fabergé was born in St Petersburg on 30 May 1846. The son of the Huguenot goldsmith and jeweller Gustav Fabergé was exposed to his father’s craft from a child. In 1860, the family moved to Dresden where Peter Carl and his younger brother Agathon received a solid training as goldsmith and in order to be prepared for the commercial aspects of the family business, Peter also attended the Dresden Business School. He was a regular visitor at the Green Vault, where he intensively studied the treasures displayed there and also undertook trips through Europe to other famous jewellers to learn about their work; in Paris he made guest appearances at Boucheron and Cartier. In 1864, Peter Carl Fabergé returned to St Petersburg and perfected his skills with Hiskias Pendin, a partner and friend of his father. Following Pendin’s death in 1882, Fabergé could at last realise his own ideas and concepts and the international rise of the company began.

No difference between original and replica

With the help of his brother Agathon, Peter Carl Fabergé restored and catalogued the great jewellery collection of the Petersburg Hermitage. In doing so, the brothers had the idea of creating similar decorative pieces themselves. Their first own creations, presented at the All-Russian Industrial and Craft Exhibition of 1882, were a great success and excited not only the public but above all Tsar Alexander III who acquired several pricey pieces and honoured Peter Carl Fabergé with a gold medal and the Order of Saint Stanislaus. The favour of the Tsar family brought the House of Fabergé a great number of prestigious contracts. In many cases these were replicas of existing jewels such as the Russian crown jewels, which Fabergé executed with such mastery that even the Tsar was unable to distinguish the original from the copy. As Imperial court jeweller, the House of Fabergé employed over 700 employees in several establishments in Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and London; for the French writer Émile Zola, he created a vase in the ‘Old Russian style’ from gilt silver on behalf of wealthy Russian admirers. 

The October Revolution ruined his life’s work

As a result of the October Revolution of 1917, Peter Carl Fabergé was forced to witness the painful destruction of his life’s work; his business was expropriated and he himself was driven into exile. This development led to a considerable downturn in his health. Peter Carl Fabergé died on 24 September 1920 in Pully near Lausanne, but his work, in particular his most famous creation, the Fabergé egg, lived on and has not lost its fascination. The legacy of the Fabergé company was continued by the Pforzheim jewellery manufacturer Victor Meyer from 1989 to 2009. On the occasion of the former President of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev, being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a newly designed Fabergé egg was created out of gold, silver, enamel, rubies and diamonds, limited to five examples. The Russian businessman Wiktor Wekselberg acquired nine Fabergé eggs from the estate of the US entrepreneur Malcolm Forbes for between 90 and 120 million dollars and brought them back to the Shuvalov Palace in St Petersburg. Several of the original Fabergé eggs are now considered lost.