Brief account by Evgeny Fabergé on February 13, 1937, at the request of Henry Bainbridge (archives of Tatiana Fabergé, summary)
The House of "C. Fabergé" in Saint Petersburg was the jeweler to the courts of Russia, Great Britain, Sweden, and Siam.
Peter-Carl Fabergé (Carl Gustavovich in Russian) was born in Saint Petersburg on May 30, 1846, into the family of jeweler and master goldsmith Gustav Fabergé, who had opened a modest workshop on Bolshaya Morskaya Street in that city.
The Fabergés were originally French Protestants (Huguenots) from Picardy; their ancestors had to flee the country after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. Traveling through Northern Germany, they first settled in the Baltic province of Russia before establishing themselves in Saint Petersburg. In 1872, Carl took over the succession from his retired father.
He quickly moved from the modest workshop to more spacious premises located across the street. After a few years, the size of this workshop had doubled.
In 1900, C. Fabergé moved into a new building he had acquired on the same street and remodeled according to his own vision in the English Gothic style: the facade was clad in splendid Finnish marble.
On the ground floor of this house, renovated by the famous architect Carl Schmidt, son of a cousin of Carl Fabergé, on the street that in 1902 took the name Morskaïa (formerly Bolshaïa Morskaïa), was a large jewelry store. There were three more floors. On the top floor was Fabergé's elegant apartment, designed and decorated to his taste. His study and office, lined with oak paneling, were particularly successful; the most interesting and luxurious room was the library, two stories high; the boudoir of his wife, Augusta Fabergé, née Jacobs, was very elegant. The latter's father was a renowned master ebony sculptor: he created many first-rate objects for Nicholas I, Alexander II, and Alexander III.
The company also included a specialized factory and sculpture workshops, which produced numerous items in various kinds of fine stone, mainly from Siberia: animal figurines, from the smallest to the largest; flowers and plants, faithful copies of the originals, in rock crystal vases. All sorts of comical objects were also produced, for example, Russian types: soldiers, peasants, peasant women, Cossacks, etc.
One day, I believe it was in 1883, Carl Fabergé had the happy idea of making an original Easter egg, and he shared it with Alexander III.
This delightful object was greatly appreciated by His Majesty, who commissioned one from him and expressed the wish that each year, on the eve of Easter, a new egg be delivered to him at the Palace.
This first specimen was made of gold and covered with white enamel; the yolk, in gold, contained a hen with wings in gold of various colors which in turn enclosed a diamond miniature of the imperial crown in which was a small ruby egg that could be worn as a pendant.
From then on, every year, my father planned a new egg with a surprise that the Tsar offered to his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna.
After the death of His Majesty, my father was obliged to make the eggs in pairs for Tsar Nicholas II, who gave them as gifts to his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, and to the Empress Mother. He created fifty eggs in total.
Carl Fabergé participated in many exhibitions. He achieved great success at the Nuremberg Fine Arts and Jewelry Exhibition in 1885, where he presented copies of the superb gold ornaments of ancient Greece, the originals of which are in the Hermitage Museum. These jewels were crafted several centuries before our era. C. Fabergé was awarded the gold medal.
In 1888, at the Northern Exhibition in Copenhagen, he received a Diploma of Honor.
He then took part in the Russian Exhibition of Nizhny Novgorod in 1896 (gold medal) and won the right to display the State coat of arms on his sign; before that, at the Russian Exhibition of 1882, he had won the gold medal. The following year, in 1897, Fabergé received the title of Court Jeweler from the King of Sweden and Norway, and Evgueni Fabergé, a member of the jury, won the gold medal.
But Fabergé experienced his greatest success at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1900, where he presented his works hors concours, served on the jury, and was decorated with the Legion of Honor, while his eldest son Evgueni was decorated with the palm, the symbol of the officers of the Academy of Fine Arts, and his main goldsmiths won gold and silver medals.
Tsar Alexander III conferred upon C. Fabergé the title of supplier to the Imperial Court, and Nicholas II that of court jeweler.
In addition to the parent house in Saint Petersburg, Fabergé owned a Moscow branch with a factory that produced silverware and jewelry. He then opened a branch in Odessa with workshops, and another in Kiev five years later. There was a large store in London whose first manager was Arthur Baud, succeeded by H. Bainbridge and Nicholas Fabergé, Carl's youngest son. His Majesty King George V appointed C. Fabergé as Court Jeweler.
At the invitation of His Highness Prince Chakrabongse of Siam, who had studied in Petersburg and spoke Russian perfectly, Fabergé undertook a trip to Siam (present-day Thailand) and visited the palaces of Indian Maharajas. His Majesty King Chulalongkorn conferred upon him the title of Court Jeweler and Enameler; he was a great admirer of his art.
Following the Universal Exhibition of 1900, Fabergé acquired a large clientele not only in Paris but also throughout the civilized world, both in Europe and America.
I am not speaking of the Russian Grand Dukes nor of a significant part of the European nobility who were regular clients of the house. During official visits of foreign monarchs to Petersburg, the program necessarily included a visit to the Fabergé store. Not a single one of them refused the visit.
When the revolution broke out, the Fabergé stores remained open; they were closed for only a short time. The Fabergé family lived for a year and a half under the new regime, including one year under the Bolsheviks. Then Carl emigrated to Riga, which was then the capital of Latvia.
When the Bolsheviks stormed the city, he managed with difficulty to flee to Germany with some friends. But when the revolution began there as well, he was forced to move first to Frankfurt am Main, then to Homburg, and finally to Wiesbaden.
It is easy to understand that all these moves and this stressful existence began to compromise his health, all the more so as he was already seventy-four years old.
In Wiesbaden, he fell ill, whereas in Russia he had always been distinguished by iron health.
In June 1920, his wife and his son Evgueni transported him to Lausanne. The good Swiss air had a beneficial influence on him and he felt better; he even sometimes took boat trips on Lake Geneva to Ouchy, Montreux, or Nyon with his grandson Peter, Agafon's second son. However, he suffered from this inactivity; he had always been so hardworking, active, intelligent, and diligent.
This life of idleness was unbearable to him. He often repeated: "To be unable to work or be useful is not a life. It makes no sense." His heart was weakened by fifty years of creative work. After having founded a first-rate jewelry business, achieved success and notoriety throughout the civilized world, this man was forced to watch his work and his existence sink in such a foolish and senseless way. That finished him.
Carl Fabergé passed away peacefully, without suffering, at dawn on September 24, 1920, in the presence of his wife, one hour after smoking half a cigarette. In accordance with his last wishes, his body was cremated at the Lausanne crematorium to the sounds of Beethoven's Mass, which he loved so much. Augusta Fabergé died in Cannes on January 27, 1925. In May 1930, I transported my father's ashes there and buried him in my mother's grave. I placed a funeral monument on their grave that is both elegant and simple, for my parents were simple and elegant people throughout their lives. It is sculpted in Swedish black porphyry with gold letters, according to my father's wish.