FABERGÉ’S CLIENTÈLE

 FABERGÉ’S CLIENTÈLE

‘You meet just everyone at Fabergé’, wrote Victoria Sackville in 1896 about

her visit to the House of Fabergé in St Petersburg. We learn from the 1919

‘Memoirs’ of François Birbaum, Fabergé’s senior craftsman from 1896-1917,

that ‘All the aristocracy of St. Petersburg, persons of title, rank and wealth,

could be seen there every afternoon between 4 and 5 o’clock’. The clientèle

also included prima-ballerinas, artists actors and singers.

At the London branch of Fabergé, Henry Bainbridge, one of its managers,

recalls opening the door one afternoon to Queen Alexandra accompanied by

the King and Queen of Norway, the King of Greece and the King of Denmark.

When anyone knocked at the door, he asked himself, ‘Was it the postman, or

the Shah of Persia?’ Clearly Bainbridge considered his life was a

kaleidoscope of royals, nobles and the in-set.

They were attracted to Fabergé from far and wide. In 1900 the American

millionaire Henry C Walters, whose art collection including Fabergé objects

may be viewed at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, sailed from the US in

his 224-foot yacht Narada, moored on the Neva and shopped at Fabergé’s.

Others of course expected Fabergé to travel to them.

Among these clients was the King of Siam. A friendship between the Russian

and Siamese Royal Families started in 1890, hence King Chulalongkorn’s

interest and appreciation of Fabergé objects. The House of Fabergé also

visited clients in continental Europe as well as India. Its clientèle also included

the Emperor of China, the Emir of Bukhara, the Khedive of Egypt, the King of

Abyssinia and Indian maharajas. Representatives from Fabergé’s London

branch visited south-east Asia twice a year.

Fabergé was not just a jeweller, he was far more besides. Bainbridge called

him a ‘genius on the rampage, always in search of something in which to vent

his creative skill’. His clients helped him on his quest, for they were looking for

something more than fine pearls and diamonds, either for themselves, or as

gifts. They belonged to a set that had these. So Fabergé created objets de

fantaisie, objets deluxe and bibelots. He used semi-precious stones, enamels

and carved hardstones to create objects that the world demanded and which

brought him fame.

Indeed when a courtier presented Edward VII with a fine antique print of a

racehorse the King admired, His Majesty declined it saying, ‘Go to Fabergé’s,

they have a hippopotamus cigar-lighter in nephrite, if you wish to give me

something give me that’. He added, ‘Besides the lighter, I am sure is half the

price, and is amusing’.

Fabergé’s clients were his greatest ambassadors. As the Dowager Empress

Marie Fedorovna said to him, ‘Vous êtes un génie incomparable….’.