Fabergé, A Comprehensive Reference Book
Without the help and unwavering support of the Board of the Igor Carl Fabergé Foundation, this groundbreaking history of the House of Fabergé would not have been possible.
After long and in-depth research in the archives and the patient analysis of documents, a great deal of new information has been uncovered.
The result is the ultimate reference book on Fabergé, offering experts and enthusiasts alike a new, complete and accurate history of the House of Fabergé.
To date, more than 3,000 books have been published on Carl Fabergé, with most authors content to systematically repeat the same things and recount the same stories and legends.
Most of these works are based on information provided by Eugène Carlovich Fabergé in the 1930s or by H.C. Bainbridge, who was the first to write a biography of Carl Fabergé in 1949.
The inability to obtain substantial material meant that scholars were unable to verify their work. Letters written by the Tsar, Fabergé invoices, Cabinet documents or Bolshevik inventories have been hidden in Russia since the Revolution.
Other documents, such as the Fabergé family records/files passed down from one generation to the next, were not accessible to researchers. These files include, among other things, cash books, lists of goods confiscated during the Soviet period in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, as well as a photographic collection that includes, in particular, the silver table service made by Fabergé Moscow for the great industrialist Alexander Kelkh.
For ten years, the authors of this work consulted and carefully studied these unpublished archives.
This extraordinary book includes abundant illustrations and authenticated documents, most of which have never been published to date. This handbook is a masterpiece. It is “THE” reference book on the fascinating history of the House of Fabergé.