Biography
The famous Russian master, famous for the manufacture of jewelry eggs, surprisingly thin and filigree, is known to everyone. It is worth saying "Faberge Eggs", as in mind the amazing works of art from precious metals and stones, which were proud of the August family.
In the veins of a skilled master, the German and Franco-Danish blood was flowed with an admixture of Estonian, but precisely Karl Faberge, who stood at the head of the German community in St. Petersburg, laid the Russian jewelry school, the main principle of which was impeccable quality.
From time to time, Faberge jewelry houses appear on world auctions and go to buyers for millions of dollars.
Childhood and youth
A future jeweler was born in the spring of 1846 in the northern capital. Mom of the famous master - Dane Charlotte Jungststt, the artist's daughter. Father Gustav Faberge was born in Liflandia (the Baltic German) from the numbers of the French-Guenotov, who went to Prussia after the abolition of the Nange Edicta. In the early 1840s, Gustav Faberge founded a jewelry workshop in the city, but after 20 years he moved to Dresden.
Artistic abilities from Karl showed up in childhood. The son was vividly interested in jewelry affair, and his father gave an exceptional education: in St. Petersburg, the boy was given to a private gymnasium. Then the young man studied a commercial business in Dresden.
After a long journey through the cities of Europe, Karl studied jewelry in Frankfurt from Master Joseph Friedman.
Hanging technical knowledge, Faberge studied the management of the enterprise and returned to North Palmyra in 1864. In the father's workshop and in the Hermitage, the young jeweler was restored by ancient jewelry.
In 1872, Gustav Faberge, who lived in Dresden, handed over to the 25-year-old son of the authority and made the head of the St. Petersburg firm. At first, 100 workers in her state were listed: many skillful masters Karl looked when he traveled in Europe.
Jewelry and Business
After 10 years, the houses of the House of Faberge fell to the Moscow artistic and industrial exhibition, where they noticed and appreciated the king Alexander III. From this point on, the biography of Jewelela is inextricably linked with the imperial family, which patronizes Karl Faberge and popularizes its products in Europe. Romanovs are ordered to jewelery jewelry, which give relatives in Denmark, Britain, Greece.
In the 1900th Russian Master, the title of "Master of the Paris Guild of Jewelers" was honored and the Order of the Honor Legion established by Napoleon was presented. On a large maritime street in the city, the main building of the company appeared: the house was designed by the family relative - Karl Schmidt. On the ground floor there were workshops and a shop opened, three other floors took the family.
The first jewelry egg of Faberge appeared in 1885. I ordered the product Emperor for the wife of Maria Fedorovna as a gift for Easter. The egg is called "chicken" or "chicken". In comparison with the rest, the product looks simple: on top of white enamel, inside - in the golden "yolk" - a chicken made of colored gold, in which the ruby crown was hiding.
The idea of an egg in which a surprise was hiding, belongs not to Karl Faberge: the first copies of the eggs appeared in the XVIII century. Such products were kept in the treasury of the King Denmark, the father of the wife of Alexander III, nee Maria Sophia Frederica Dagmar. The Russian king wished to make his wife a gift that would remind his homeland.
Empress Easter surprise liked that Karl Faberge became a court jeweler and received an order: every year to please the August family with a new precious egg with a secret. Nicholas II inherited a tradition and doubled the order: Karl Faberge annually to Easter produced 2 eggs - Mother of King and a spouse.
The sketch of the egg was approved by the head of the trading house, after which the best masters were taken for the work. History retained the names of Mikhail Parchin (Karelian nugget), Augustus Holstrom, Eric Collin. With Romanov Trading House Faberge rose to 500 employees.
"Fashion" for the gift of the Easter eggs Faberge, which Romanov was introduced, spread over Europe: orders received the Russian jewelry house from abroad. It is known about 15 products, 7 of whom Karl Faberge created the gold miner Alexander Kelha. The remaining 8 eggs master and his students did for Felix Yusupov, the Duchess of Malboro, Rothschilds.
Russian jeweler products hit unexpected decisions. Karl Faberge boldly experimented: the basis of the brooches could make Karelian birch, recovering a piece of wood in diamonds. He often worked with semi-precious stones and materials considered "non-invalid". But the work was so filigined that he struck the most demanding customers.
Faberge's workshop was famous for unique enamel: hundreds of color shades and guilloche technique (patterned notches on the main background, coated with layers of varnish) turned the product in the masterpiece. Enamel portraits, clocks, boxes, tobacker and setles as if shone from the inside and seemed multi-layered.
The trading house produced both jewelry of the fabulous price and products of mass production. In 1914, a series of copper chambers from copper, prisoners arrived. But the greatest glory of Faberge's house brought jewelry Easter eggs: for the royal family in the workshop, 54 copies were created.
After the October Revolution of the factory and the shops of the Imperial Jeweler nationalized. In Petrograd, the Bolsheviks expropriated finished products and reserves of precious stones and metals, without paying no compensation pen. Some products managed to take away the sons of Karl Faberge to Finland.
Confiscated masterpieces of power sold, filling the treasury of a young state. Six Easter eggs acquired a representative of the British shopping house Wartski Emmanuel Snouumen in the Petrograd store of Faberge.
In the autumn of 1918, Karl Faberge secretly fled in Riga: the royal jeweler was afraid of arrest and execution. After the invasion of the Bolsheviks in Latvia, the master went to Germany. When Berlin covered the November Revolution, Faberge moved to Frankfurt am Main, where he also did not delay.
The last years of Faberge's life spent in Wiesbaden. After the revolutionary shocks and the confiscation of the property, the famous master fell in spirit and repeated that "there is no more life."
In 2004, the Russian entrepreneur and billionaire Victor Vekselberg for $ 100 million bought 9 eggs from Malcolm for 9 eggs (among them the first - "chicken") and returned to Russia. Thanks to the businessman in St. Petersburg, the Faberge Museum appeared.
Personal life
Karl Faberge married only once: His wife in 1872 became a girl named Auguste Julia Jacobs. In 1874, Auguste gave birth to her husband, who was named Eugene. He went in the footsteps of his father, learned the jewelry case, worked in the parental workshop, and in the early 1920s immigrated to France.
In 1876, the second son was born - Agafon Faberge. In the spring of 1895, he joined the family business, and at the end of the 1890s became an appraiser of the imperial yard. The relationship of Agafon Karlovich with his father was smashed after charges in the steal (later a friend of the family was confessed). In the 1920s, the son of the famous jeweler worked by authorized by Gokhran. In 1927, ran out in Finland, where he lived in poverty.
The third son of the royal jeweler - Alexander was born in 1877. I immigrated to Paris and together with Brother Evgeny founded the Faberge and K company. The fourth, younger, son of Charles - Nikolai - Born in 1884. Became a jewelry designer. From 1906 he worked at the branch of Faberge in the capital of Britain.
In 56 years, the head of the jewelry house fell in love with the 21-year-old singer Cafeshantana Amalia Crybel, Czech. It was not going to dare to divorce the wife of the Romanov's respected jeweler's jeweler, but also a passion for young amalie could not win. Every year Karl Faberge went for 3 months to Europe, grabbing the singer.
In 1912, Kribel married Prince of ancient Georgian family and took the name of Cycianov. My husband left immediately, and the connection with Karl did not break. Amalia is called the second Mata Hari. Ctsianov has been recruited Germans and Austrians. To get to Russia during the war he helped Faberge. In the spring of 1916, Amalia was arrested and exiled to Siberia. With Carl Faberge, the last beloved was no longer met, and the Jeweler had difficulties due to communication with the Austrian spy.
Death
Doctors prescribed a 74-year-old jeweler a calm and measured life, strictly-setting forboving smoking: Faberge had a sick heart.
Natives transported the head of the family to the shore of the Lake Geneva, which was famous for the climate. The entrepreneur who lost the whole life robbed by the Bolsheviks and - according to different estimates - $ 500 million, not counting real estate, and did not recover from the strike.
In September 1920, Karl Faberge, despite the prohibitions of doctors, reckled a strong cigar. I did not have time to end: died, dating up to half. Buried Faberge on the graveyard Grand Jas in Cannes.
Memory
- In St. Petersburg there is a square of Charles Faberge
- November 19, 2013 in St. Petersburg in the Palace of Naryshkin-Shuvalov, the Faberge Museum was opened
- In Kiev, there is a memorial plaque in honor of the famous jeweler
- In Odessa, on the building of the Passage Hotel, where the jewelry salon of Charles Faberge was located in fashionable trading orders to the Bolshevik revolution, a memorial plaque was installed
- In Baden-Baden, there is a Faberge Museum - the first in the world, fully dedicated to the works of Jewelira
- In Moscow there is a college of decorative and applied art names of Karl Faberge