Gustav Fabergé: The Dresden Years

Gustav Fabergé:

The Dresden Years

Participants: Tatiana Fabergé, Angelika Schaaf, Valentin Skurlov, and John Varoli

Main findings: The research team concludes that not only did Fabergé find his inspiration in the collections of the Hermitage Museum, but unknown to many scholars until now, we can say that the magnificent royal collection in the Grünes Gewölbe treasury in the Dresden State Museum served as a source of inspiration for a number of leading creative ideas. These include the Imperial Easter eggs, gemstone figurines, jewelled flowers, and enamel. We have remarked that some Fabergé items are very similar to items found in the Grünes Gewölbe. Probably the greatest single influence on Fabergé was the great Dresden court jewellers, the brothers Dinglinger and elements of their genius can be found in Fabergé items that were made more than 150 years later..  Three brothers Dinglinger : Georg Christoph (1668-1746), Georg Friedrich (1666-1720) and Johann Melchior (1664-1731) and his son Johann Friedrich (1702-1767)

``In all my years researching Fabergé it’s unbelievable that I didn’t realize the importance of the Grünes Gewölbe treasury before,’’ said Valentin Skurlov, a leading Fabergé historian, who made his first visit to the Dresden Museum in August.. ``Now, many things are clear, and I see a colossal number of things in the Grünes Gewölbe that inspired Fabergé.’’

While working in the State Dresden Archives, the research team also discovered five home addresses for Gustav Fabergé and his family. However, these buildings and their respective city blocks were utterly obliterated during the bombing of Dresden in February 1945. Still, the research team was able to  realize that Gustav Fabergé always lived in the vicinity of the Kreuzkirche, the Lutheran church to which he belonged, and which is a ten-minute walk from the Grünes Gewölbe.

The Kreuzkirche archives revealed that …still awaiting their reply.

Report:

In 1860 Gustav Fabergé, founder of the Fabergé jewellery company, left St. Petersburg with his wife and son, Carl, and moved to Dresden, the capital of the Kingdom of Saxony. At this time, the Fabergé jewelry company had only a few employees, and was struggling to compete with dozens of other jewellery companies in Russia’s Imperial capital. While the name Fabergé is now associated with opulence and grandeur, we must remember that in 1860 the company was not distinguishable from its many competitors. In 1860 Gustav was 48 years old, and at the beginning of his life in Dresden a man of modest means. He lived in Dresden until his death in 1894, and existing monographs and articles about the House of Fabergé provide no information as to what Gustav did during those 33 years, where he lived, and why he even chose to move to Dresden in the first place.

According to Tatiana Fabergé the desire for a better climate was a factor in leaving St Petersburg. Situated on a swamp at the far end of the Gulf of Finland, the Russian capital was plagued by some of the most damp, rainy and inclement weather in Europe. In 1858, while still living in St. Petersburg, Gustav and his wife lost their 5-year old daughter. And they desperately wanted a second son.

There are plenty of places in Europe with finer climates than St. Petersburg, so certainly there had to be other reasons why Gustav chose Dresden. Since he didn’t leave any written record of his life, we have to make educated guesses. First, Dresden was a predominantly Lutheran city, and Gustav was Lutheran. Second, Dresden was both then and now home to the Grünes Gewölbe, one of the largest and grandest jewellery collections in the world.

Until the destruction of World War II and the Communist period, Dresden had been for centuries one of the richest cities in Europe, and saw its golden age in the early 18^th century during the reign of its greatest king, Augustus the Strong. Dresden was and is the capital of Saxony, a region of Germany that has enjoyed close relations with Russia since the early 18^th century. This is certainly another factor. Russians were welcome guests in Dresden, and many wealthy, powerful and talented Russians made Dresden a priority destination when traveling around Europe. In fact, many settled there. This is even more reason why Gustav would have felt at home there.

While all of the above gives us a better understanding as to why Gustav chose Dresden, it still doesn’t answer the question what he did in the city. Our research was unable to yield so far conclusive evidence how he might have spent his professional time.

Research in the Dresden State Archives revealed that Gustav and his family lived in five different locations from 1860 to1903, and always near the Kreuzkirche, where the family attended church. This church still stands, but the entire area was utterly destroyed on 13 February 1945 and is now populated by contemporary buildings. Carl had his confirmation at the Kreuzkirche as well as his brother, Agathon.

Material from the church’s archives reveals so far nothing.

One thing we can be sure is that Gustav spent much time raising his sons, especially Agathon, who was born in Dresden in 1862. Providing a top-notch education to both Carl and Agathon was Gustav’s top priority. This is clear in Gustav’s decision to send Carl on educational travel study to European capitals in order to master his trade.

``Gustav’s main achievement is that he, as a simple jeweller, found the money to give his sons a great education, and made them top specialists when they returned to Russia,’’ said Skurlov. ``Carl and Agathon knew the best in European jewellery traditions.’’

Carl returned to St. Petersburg in 1872, and took over the company in 1882. There is no record of him returning to Dresden in subsequent years, but since his parents lived there, he most certainly did.

Agathon moved to St. Petersburg in 1882, at the age of 20, to work with his older brother as the company’s chief designer. However, the situation regarding his education in Dresden and Europe is still not clear. There is no information to shed light on his childhood, and to indicate where he studied. We are hoping to obtain some clarification from the Dresden archives.

Agathon worked as chief designer until his death in 1895. Three years after his arrival in St. Petersburg in1882, the company began to produce jewelled Easter eggs for the Russian Imperial family. It always has been a custom to give decorated porcelain or painted wooden eggs to loved ones on Easter, but Fabergé became the first to make jewelled eggs, with a surprise inside, for the Imperial Family. The idea for a jewelled egg most likely came from Dresden because the collection contains an early 18^th century jewelled egg that opens and which Augustus the Strong gave to his Danish relatives.

But how do we ascertain the influence of the Grünes Gewölbe on Carl and Agathon Fabergé?

There are no documents confirming that Gustav or Agathon ever visited the Grünes Gewölbe; the Dresden Museum does not keep record of such visits, and there is no material in Fabergé family archives that contains reference to Dresden. First, this can be explained by the fact that the Fabergé family was not keen on letter writing. Second, it is highly likely they might have wished to keep secret from competitors the inspiration provided by the Grünes Gewölbe treasury. 

However, we do know that the royal treasury was open to a limited public, such as guests of the king, visiting aristocrats, and anyone else who could prove a need and reason to see the collection. It is most certain that Gustav had no problem gaining access to the collection, first and foremost for the educational benefit of his sons.

While all previous Fabergé scholarship failed to make the connection between Agathon’s early life in Dresden and the rise of the Fabergé company to great heights during his tenure as chief designer, our research team is certain that the Grünes Gewölbe treasury had great influence on Agathon.

Agathon took the company to new heights and into new creative realms, for instance, designing Imperial Easter eggs, making ``fantasy items,’’ making enamels, producing silver items, and in the late 1880s, working with semi-precious gemstones. In fact, the first gemstone figures appear in 1892.

One needs only to look at Fabergé’s Renaissance Egg, now in the Victor Vekselberg Link of Times Collection. It appears to be a copy of the egg-shaped jewelled item in the Grünes Gewölbe treasury, which was made in France in about 1700.

The Grünes Gewölbe has many masterpieces made by Johann Melchior Dinglinger who served as the chief jeweller in Dresden in the time of Augustus the Strong. His creations clearly inspired Fabergé, and among these are jewelled flora, enamels, and figurines and statues made from ivory, gem stones, and precious metals.

Skurlov also points out that one early 18^th century Dinglinger item in the Grünes Gewölbe is ``95 percent the same as a Fabergé item now in a private collection.’’ This jewelled item shows a girl made of rhinoceros tusk holding a clam shell with a dragon perched on top. The one is Dresden is 35 cm high, while the Fabergé one is 37 cm high.

As a resident of Dresden whose studies and future profession was in the jewellery business, Agathon most certainly had access to the Grünes Gewölbe, and brought that knowledge back to The House of Fabergé when he returned to St. Petersburg.