Fabergé in London: the British branch of the Imperial Russian goldsmith

Abstract

Royalty, aristocrats, American heiresses, exiled Russian Grand Dukes, randlords, maharajas, socialites and financiers with newly made fortunes flocked to Fabergé in London to buy gifts for each other. This book is the first dedicated to the glittering history of Fabergé's British branch, from its opening in 1903 to its closure in 1917. Using previously unreferenced sources and a newly discovered archive of papers relating to Fabergé in London, Kieran McCarthy studies the branch's structure, customers and exclusive stock. The most expensive sale made by Fabergé in London, of a diamond tiara priced for £1400, cost one hundred times the annual wage of a scullery maid. It will be of interest to enthusiasts of the decorative arts, the social history of the Edwardian Golden Age and especially of European Royalty. Fabergé's works were and continue to be intimately associated with the British Royal Family. For Violet Trefusis, daughter of King Edward VII's mistress Mrs. Keppel and lover of Vita Sackville-West, a Fabergé cigarette case was the emblem of Royalty, as symbolical as the bookies' cigar, or the ostler's straw.