Skurlov Valentin Vasilyevich bio

 Skurlov Valentin Vasilyevich (born on December 14, 1947, Leningrad, Russian Soviet

Federative Socialist Republic, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) is an art historian,

jewelry historian, honorary academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, academic secretary of

the Faberge Memorial Foundation, expert of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation,

consultant on Faberge products of the Department of Russian Art of the Christie’s Auction

house.

He was born in Leningrad in the family of an army officer. His mother was an accountant.

He obtained a degree of a commodity expert of the highest qualification at the Leningrad

Institute of Soviet Trade in 1975. He completed his postgraduate study with a degree in

economics of trade at the same place in 1978.

He is a member of the city history section at the Museum of Saint-Petersburg History since 1988.

He is the chairman of this section since 2012.

He is a member of the Russian Genealogical Society since 1992.

He developed the Charter of the Carl Faberge Memorial Foundation in 1994.

He is a Scientific Secretary of the Carl Faberge Memorial Foundation after approval of the

Charter in April 1996.

He is a member of the editorial board of the “Russian Jeweler” magazine since 1996.

He is a member of the editorial board of the “Antiquarian Review” magazine and an honored

worker of arts and crafts since 2000.

He is an expert on the evaluation of artistic values of the Ministry of Culture and Mass

Communications since 2002. Full Holder of the Order of Carl Faberge.

He received the title of Honored Worker of stone-cutting art in 2008. Laureate of the Antsifer

Prize Diploma for merits in Saint-Petersburg local history.

2009 — Chairman of the City History Section at the Museum of Saint-Petersburg history

He is a holder of the Order of Mikhail Perkhin since 2010. At the end of the same year, he was

elected chairman of the Award Commission of the Carl Faberge Memorial Foundation. The

Foundation has established a new position of “King of Arms” instead of the Chairman of the

Award Commission since 2011. There are 665 recipients of all Faberge Foundation awards at the

moment. Two-thirds are jewelers and craftsmen of them. The rest are jewelers, art historians and

enterprise managers.

On May 25, 2012, having defended his thesis on the topic “History and traditions of the Faberge

company in the stone-cutting art of Russia (late 19 th - early 21 st century)” at the Saint-Petersburg

University of Humanities and Social Sciences in Saint-Petersburg, Valentin Skurlov obtained a

Ph.D. in History of Arts. Consultant for Faberge products of the Russian Art Department of the

Christie’s auction house. Holder of the Order of Franz Birbaum.

He is a member of the expert council of the “Link of Times” Cultural and Historical Foundation

of the Faberge Museum in Saint-Petersburg since 2013.

On October 18, 2016, Skurlov Valentin Vasilievich was elected an honorary academician of the

Russian Academy of Arts for services to the jewelry art of Russia.

Scientific contributions

In 1989, V. V. Skurlov found the notes on the history of the Faberge company written in 1919 by

Franz Birbaum (1872—1947), the chief master of the Faberge company in the archives of

Academician A. E. Fersman. Nowadays, these Notes are the “bible” of any researcher of

Faberge’s creative work. In the early 1990s, V. V. Skurlov discovered authentic invoices for

Imperial Easter eggs in the archives, which made it possible to identify their exact amount — 50

pieces. Besides, V. V. Skurlov drew attention to the importance of attributing Faberge products

with the help of scratched inventory numbers and developed an algorithm for reading these

numbers for the first time. The company’s product database, which was 18,000 items in 1999,

has now grown to 43,000 items. The database is used by museums, collectors and Auction

Houses. While actively working in the private archive of Tatiana Faberge, being her literary

secretary and co-author of more than 12 books, V. V. Skurlov compiled a list of the company’s

employees, which consisted of 35 persons at the beginning of the 1990s, and it is more than 450

persons nowadays.

Memorialization

On December 19, 1996, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the birthday of Carl Faberge, the

world’s first monument to Carl Faberge was erected on an unnamed square near the “Russkie

Samotsvety” (Russian Gems) Association. V. V. Skurlov took an active part in substantiating

and developing the scientific concept of the monument. The square was named after Carl

Faberge in 1998. Care and restoration of the graves of Agafon Gustavovich Faberge

(1862—1895) and Mikhail Perkhin (1860—1903) in Saint-Petersburg. In 2009, V.V. Skurlov

found the place in Dresden where the grave of Carl Faberge’s mother, Charlotte Faberge, née

Jungstedt (1820—1903), was located, and erected a monument on the grave at his own expense

with the participation of Tatiana Faberge in 2014. A memorial cross was installed at the burial

site of the artist Vasily Zuev in Cherdakly, Ulyanovsk Region. A chapel was erected on the

motherland of Mikhail Perkhin in the village of Yalguba near Petrozavodsk. Two memorial

plaques were installed on the former Faberge stores in Odessa (2006) and Kyiv (2011). A project

of a memorial plaque was developed on the premises of the Faberge store in the building of the

Nizhny Novgorod Fair.

A bas-relief and a bust of Carl Faberge were installed in the premises of the former primary

Faberge store at the address: Boshaya Morskaya Street, 24, Saint-Petersburg. V. V. Skurlov

actively promoted and consulted the installation of a bronze monument to Gustav Faberge

(1814—1894), the founder of the Faberge company in 1842, the father of Karl Gustavovich

Faberge, in Parnu (Estonia), January 2015.

He consulted the sculptor Pavel Koltygin during the creation of a monument to Mikhail

Evlampievich Perkhin (1860 – 1903), the leading jeweler of the Faberge Company. The

monument was opened in November 2022 in the city of Petrozavodsk.

Reference list

Valentin Skurlov is the author of 30 books and monographs as well as more than 150 articles on

the history of jewelry.

 Inna Shatalova, Valentin Skurlov. To a buyer about jewelry. — M.: Economics, 1990. —

144 p.

 Valentin Skurlov, Galina Smorodinova. Faberge and Russian court jewelers. Album. — M.:

Terra-Book Club, 2001. — 112 p.

 Tatiana Faberge, Valentin Skurlov. The history of the Faberge company. — (Russkie

Samotsvety) Russian Gems, JSC, 1993. — 104 p.

 Tatiana Faberge, Valentin Skurlov, R. Gafifullin. A new chronology of Faberge Imperial

Easter eggs. — Saint-Petersburg, 1993.

 Magdalena Ribbing, Tatiana Muntyan, Valentin Skurlov, Larisa Zavadskaya. Jewels and

silver. V. A. Bolin 200 years. — M., 1996. — 232 p.

 Tatiana Faberge, Valentin Skurlov, Alexander Gorynya. Faberge and Saint-Petersburg

Jewelers. Under the general editorship of V. V. Skurlov. — Saint-Petersburg: “Neva”

Magazine, 1997. — 704 p.

 Lynette G. Proler, Valentin Skurlov, Tatyana Faberge. Faberge Imperial Easter Eggs. —

Hardcover, 1997, 2000. — 272 p.

 Eric-Alain Kohler; Tatyana Fabergé; Evelyne Maradan; Ina Sivolap-Kaftanova; Gérard

Bourgarel, Alexandre Salzmann, Valentin Skourlov. François Birbaum: Premier Maître du

joaillier Fabergé, 1872-1947. — Fribourg: Pro Fribourg, 1997.  ISBN 2-88359-018-4

 Dmitry Machinsky, Ulla Ehrensverd, Mikhail Milchik, Sergei Gorbatenko, Georgy

Priamursky, Eric Lennruth, Bengt Jangfeldt, Anna Ivarsdotter, Folke Ludwigs, Koncha

Emmrich Susanne, Sergei Sementsov, Magnus Olauson, Boris Kirikov, Leif Brudersen, Ulf

Abel, Susanne Silverstolpe, Valentin Skurlov, Yuri Novikov, Gunnar Bruberg, Martin Fritz,

Vladimir Meshkunov, Galina Yakovleva. The Swedes on the banks of the Neva River. —

Swedish Institute, 1999.

 The World of Faberge. — Red Square, 2000. Irina Rodimtseva, Tatiana Muntyan, Irina

Gorbatova, E. Morshakova, S. Amelekhina, Valentina Nikitina, Irina Bogatskaya, Valentin

Skurlov, Svetlana Kovarskaya, Mikhail Muntyan. The World of Faberge. — Red Square,

2000.

 Tatiana Muntyan, Irina Gorbatova, E. Morshakova, Valentina Nikitina, N. Smirnova,

Svetlana Kovarskaya, Irina Bogatskaya, Valentin Skurlov. Faberge. Great Jewelers of

Russia. — Red Square, 2000.

 Magdalena Ribbing, Tatiana Muntyan, Valentin Skurlov, Larisa Zavadskaya. Bolin Jewelry

& Silver for 200 years. — Westeros, 2000. — 232 p.

 Valentin Skurlov. Jewelers and stone-cutters of the Urals. — Saint-Petersburg: Liki Rosii

(Faces of Russia), 2001. — 240 p.

 Alexander Ivanov, Valentin Skurlov. Hallmarking of Russian gold and silver items at the turn

of the 19th-20th centuries. — Saint-Petersburg: Liki Rosii (Faces of Russia), 2001. — 288 p.

 Tatiana Faberge, Valentin Skurlov. List of Eugene Faberge. Alphabetical list of friends and

acquaintances of Yevgeny Karlovich Faberge. Paris. 1932-1960 Notebooks - alphabet.

Archive of Tatiana Faberge. — Saint-Petersburg: “Antique Review”, 2002. — 76 p.

 Valentin Skurlov, Alexander Ivanov. Church things - gifts from the Cabinet of His Imperial

Majesty (1872 - 1917). — Saint-Petersburg: “Antique Review”, 2004. — 100 p.

 Anatoly Perevyshko, Valentin Skurlov, Tatiana Faberge. Saint-Petersburg of Carl Faberge.

— Saint-Petersburg: Liki Rosii (Faces of Russia), 2005. — 151 p.

 Tatiana Faberge, Valentin Skurlov. Faberge – “Minister of Jewelry”. — M.: Rus-Olimp,

Harvest, 2006. — 240 p.

 Valentin Skurlov. Suppliers of His Imperial Majesty Court. — Saint-Petersburg:

“Antiquarian Review”, 2008. — 96 p.

 Valentin Skurlov, V. Tolmatsky, Alexander Ivanov. Antique art market of Saint-Petersburg.

— Saint-Petersburg: Liki Rosii (Faces of Russia), 2008. — 520 p.

 Valentin Skurlov, Tatiana Faberge, Viktor Ilyukhin. Faberge and his successors. “Russian

types” stone-cutting figurines. — Saint-Petersburg: Liki Rosii (Faces of Russia), 2009.

— 640 p.

 Valentin Skurlov, Tatiana Faberge, Ekaterina Demkina, Sergey Kvashnin. Mikhail Perkhin

Faberge jeweler. Holders of the Order of Mikhail Perkhin. Series “Life of outstanding

people”. — Saint-Petersburg: D.A.R.K., 2011. — 200 p.

 Alexander Rupasov, Valentin Skurlov, Tatiana Faberge, Stanislav Bernev. Agathon Faberge

in Red Petrograd. — Saint-Petersburg: Liki Rosii (Faces of Russia), 2012. — 282 p.

 Tatiana Faberge, Alexander Gorynya, Valentin Skurlov. Faberge and Saint-Petersburg

Jewelers. Under the general editorship of V. V. Skurlov. — Saint-Petersburg: Faces of

Russia, 2012. — 712 p.

 Tatiana F. Fabergé, Valentin V. Skurlov, Eric-Alain Kohler. "Faberge a comprehensive

reference book". — Geneve, 2012. — 624 p.

 N. I. Vasilyeva, V. V. Skurlov. Vasily Zuev, a miniature painter of the Faberge company. -

Ulyanovsk: “Promotion Technologies Corporation”, 2015. — 280 p.

 V.V. Skurlov. Crimea and Faberge. — Saint-Petersburg: Faberge Memorial Foundation,

2015. — 56 p.

 V. V. Skurlov, N. N. Sapfirova, T. F. Faberge. Carl Faberge and Joseph Marshak. — Saint-

Petersburg: Faberge Memorial Foundation, 2015. — 78 p.

 V. V. Skurlov. Faberge and Estonia. Booklet. — Saint-Petersburg: Faberge Memorial

Foundation, 2015. — 48 p.

 V. V. Skurlov, T. F. Faberge, S. I. Kvashnin, A. I. Perevyshko. Franz Bierbaum. Chief master

of the Faberge company. — Saint-Petersburg: Faberge Memorial Foundation, 2016. — 204

p.

 V. V. Skurlov, T. F. Faberge, S. I. Kvashnin, A. I. Perevyshko. Marshal of the Faberge

Empire: Franz Bierbaum. Holders of the Order of Birbaum. — Saint-Petersburg: Faberge

Memorial Foundation, 2016. — 376 p.

 V. Skurlov, T. Faberge, Vasilyeva, I. Klimovitskaya, L. Terekhina. “Vasily Zuev.” Under the

general editorship of V. Skurlov. — Saint-Petersburg: Faberge Memorial Foundation, 2017.

— 220 p.

 V.V. Skurlov. In Search of the Faberge Archive. — Saint-Petersburg: Faberge Memorial

Foundation, 2017. — 284 p.

 Tatiana Fabergé, Nikolai Bachmakov, Dmitry Krivoshey, Nicholas B.A. Nicholson (ed.),

Valentin Skurlov, Anna Palmade, Vincent Palmade  Fabergé: The Imperial «Empire» Egg of

1902. — New York. — 2017. 364 p.   ISBN 978-1-5323-4228-8

 T. Faberge, N. Bashmakov, D. Yu. Krivoshey (compiler), N. Nicholson, A. and V. Palmeid,

V. V. Skurlov. Faberge. Imperial Easter egg “Empire” 1902. — M .: Buki Vedi, LLC, 2018.

— 160 p. ISBN 978-5-4465-1824-1

 V.V. Skurlov. Vasily Zuev and his successors. Saint-Petersburb. “Anastasia Tyutyunnik”

publishing house, 2020 – 520 p.

 V.V. Skurlov. Awards, signs and gifts from the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty. 1881-1917.

Illustrated reference book + Index of names, Saint-Petersburg, Anastasia Tyutyunnik

Publishing House, 2020. 576 pages + 48 pages. (Index, co-author A. Tyutyunnik).

 The company of Fyodor Lorie and Egor Cheryatov, the jeweler: the collection of David and

Mikhail Yakobashvili. Yu. Yu. Lisenkova, catalog compiler and abstract author, D. Yu.

Krivoshey and V. V. Skurlov, authors of articles, M. “Sobranie” (Collection) Museum 2021.

312 p.