Faberge Revealed: At the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

The exquisite objects created by goldsmith and jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé and his studio in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for the aristocracy and nobility of imperial Russia are considered to be some of the most refined examples of the jeweler's art of any age. Of greatest fascination are the extraordinary Easter eggs created as special commissions for the Russian imperial family and other notable patrons - works that remain unparalleled in their ingenuity of construction and sheer beauty.

Accompanying a major exhibition Faberge Revealed represents a landmark for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and for Fabergé scholarship. The essays by Géza von Habsburg and other scholars present new findings on Fabergé, his workshops, and the creation of these extraordinary objects. For the first time all items by or attributed to Fabergé in VMFA's collection are documented along with the museum's significant holdings of other Russian decorative arts. Also included is a section on forgeries that bravely confronts this vexing question. Every object has been splendidly re-photographed for this book - and the detailed photography alone should provide inestimable value for future Fabergé scholarship.

Richly illustrated with some 600 photographs, the volume documents an important collection bequeathed in 1947 to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts by Lillian Thomas Pratt, of Fredericksburg, Va., the wife of General Motors executive John Lee Pratt. Her collection, assembled between 1933 and 1946, comprised several hundred creations by the Faberge workshops and by other Russian imperial jewelers. These exquisite, marvelously crafted objects, range from the majestic jeweled imperial eggs to delicate jeweled flowers in vases to diamond-encrusted icons and tiaras, to animal figures nimbly carved from precious stone.

Contents:
Introduction by Géza von Habsburg
Chapter 1: The House of Fabergé/by Géza von Habsburg
Chapter 2: Behind the Scenes at Fabergé: The St. Petersburg Workshops/ by Ulla Tillander-Godenhieim
Chapter 3: Fabergé and His Russian Competitors/ by Géza von Habsburg
Chapter 4: Fabergé and His Foreign Competitors
Chapter 5: Mrs. Pratt's Imperial Easter Eggs / by Carol Aiken
Chapter 6: The Zarnitza Sailor and His Place in History / by Christel Ludewig McCaniess
Chapter 7: Fabergé and Grand Duchess Vladimir / by Alexander von Solodkoff
Chapter 8: Lillian Thomas Pratt and A La Vieille Russie: A Personal Relationship/ by Mark Schaffer
Chapter 9: Fauxbergé / by Géza von Habsburg
Catalogue: Fabergé/Other Makers/Forgeries

About the Author:

Géza von Habsburg is an internationally known author and authority on Faberge who has served as curator and organizer for a number of Fabergé exhibitions in the United States and abroad, among them Fabergé, Jeweler to the Tsars (1986-87) at Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung in Munich, Germany, and Fabergé in America, which was shown at VMFA and 4 other U.S. venues (1996-97), and Faberge, Imperial Court Jeweler, which was shown in St. Petersburg, Paris, and London (1993-94). He has written or co-written 9 books on Faberge and related topics. Von Habsburg is the grandson of King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony and great-great-grandson of Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria. He is currently the curatorial director of the London-based Fabergé Company.