House of Fabergé

Gustav Fabergé founded a jewellery business in St Petersburg in 1842. Under his son Peter Carl Fabergé (1846–1920) it became one of the largest and most famous goldsmiths in Europe, with a branch in Moscow, a workshop system of independent workmasters such as Michael Perchin, Henrik Wigström and August Holmström, and an appointment to the imperial court. Between 1885 and 1916 the firm made the series of Easter eggs presented by Alexander III and Nicholas II to the empresses.

Fabergé made many desk and table clocks in gold, silver and translucent guilloché enamel, as well as eggs containing or forming clocks, such as the Blue Serpent Clock egg and the Kelch Chanticleer egg. The clock and watch movements in Fabergé objects were usually bought in from Swiss and other makers. The firm was nationalised after the revolution of 1917 and closed in 1918.

How to recognise the work: pieces made in Russia before 1918 are marked FABERGÉ (or K. Fabergé in Cyrillic), usually with the initials of the workmaster and Russian assay marks giving the metal standard in zolotniks — 56 or 72 for gold, 84 or 88 for silver — with a woman's head in a kokoshnik headdress as the assay mark from 1896. The marks are struck on the case or frame; the movements inside the desk clocks were bought from Swiss and other makers.

After the revolution Carl Fabergé's sons Alexander and Eugène founded Fabergé & Cie in Paris in 1924 and marked their work FABERGÉ, PARIS to tell it apart from the Russian production. The name itself later passed to others: it was used from the late 1930s in the United States for perfumes and toiletries, licensed for watches, eggs and jewellery made by the German firm Victor Mayer from 1989, and sold with its trademarks in 2007. A modern 'Fabergé' watch is therefore not a product of the original house.