Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna: An Imperial Fabergé Diamond and Champlevé Enameled Gold-Mounted Purpurin Elephant. Faber...

Description

Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna: An Imperial Fabergé Diamond and Champlevé Enameled Gold-Mounted Purpurin Elephant
Fabergé, Workmaster Mikhail Perkhin, before 1899, with scratched inventory number 4913
1-3/8 x 1-1/4 x 0-3/4 inches (3.5 x 3.2 x 1.9 cm)
34 grams (gross)

PROVENANCE:
Purchased by Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, December 21, 1901, for 100 rubles.


The most important Danish order of chivalry is that of the ancient Order of the Elephant, reputedly founded in the twelfth century by Knut IV, but reëstablished by King Christian I in 1464. The badge of the order features a caparisoned elephant, an emblem of Danish sovereignty., and symbols of chastity and the defense of Christian faith. The marriages of the Danish Princess Alexandra to the future Edward VII of Great Britain, and her sister Princess Dagmar (known after her conversions to Orthodoxy as Maria Feodorovna) to the future Alexander III, was an occasion for the Danish symbol of the elephant to enter the sphere of the British and Russian courts.

Empress Maria Feodorovna and Alexander III first commissioned a work on this theme in 1892, when they ordered a large silver kovsh surmounted by the badge of the Order of the Elephant as a golden wedding anniversary gift for Maria Feodorovna's parents Christian IX and Queen Louise. The theme became closely associated with the Dowager Empress and provided the themes for several of the Imperial eggs, including the 1892 Imperial Diamond Trellis Egg (McFerrin Collection, Inv. No. 287) which featured an ivory elephant automaton, now separated from the egg and in the Royal Collection, London (RCIN 9268). The elephant was also central to the composition of 1903 Danish Jubilee Egg, now believed lost. Fabergé entered the form into his regular production, and a number of related elephants may be seen. A very similar one in agate is in the Royal Collection, RCIN 40198.

The lot is distinguished by its material. Purpurin is a richly colored red glass which was used in the Fabergé workshops at the turn of the century. Initially, Fabergé used purpurin supplied by the Imperial glassworks, but later developed their own method for making this unique material. Unlike other glass, purpurin in unstable when heated and cannot be blown or modeled; the result of purpurin manufacture is a rich porphyry red synthetic stone which can be sawn, cut, and shaped by traditional lapidary methods. Fabergé biographer Henry Charles Bainbridge, manager of the Fabergé London shop noted:

And there is another substance, the work of man, not nature, but none the worse for that, at any rate from the point of rarity, for its creator is dead and it can never be made again as his secret died with him. I refer to the vitreous substance called purpurine...
The material has much the nature of obsidian, is of that wonderful red colour named by the French 'sang de boeuf', and is very heavy, having gold in its composition. (Bainbridge, p. 47)

The offered lot is one of very few models of the Order of the Elephant in this precious material.

Heritage Auctions thanks Valentin Skurlov for his assistance with the research of this lot.

Property from an Important Private Collection

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