A Fabergé Silver-Mounted Bowenite Table Clock in the Form of a Column. Fabergé, Workmaster Mikhail Perkhin, St. Petersburg...

Description

A Fabergé Silver-Mounted Bowenite Table Clock in the Form of a Column
Fabergé, Workmaster Mikhail Perkhin, St. Petersburg, before 1899
5-1/8 x 4-5/8 inches (13.0 x 11.7 cm)

PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Germany;
Hermann Historica GmbH, Munich, November 19, 2024, lot 5006;
Private Collection, acquired from the above.


The offered lot by Fabergé has similarities to a limited number of column-form clocks and barometers in hardstone and wood created by Fabergé around the turn of the century. A related model in aventurine with a square base was sold Sotheby's London, Russian Works of Art, Fabergé & Icons, June 2, 2015, lot 222. An Imperial barometer of column form in silver-mounted palisander wood is now in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art (Coll. No. 1966.484). The offered lot appeared fairly recently in an European sale where it went unrecognized as the work of Fabergé, though the clock is undoubtably the work of the firm.

Bowenite, a rare and highly prized variety of serpentine, was a favored material of the House of Fabergé. Mined primarily in New Zealand and Rhode Island, Bowenite resembles jade and was valued for its rich green hues and fine polish. Fabergé workmasters incorporated it into luxury items such as carved animals, snuffboxes, frames and clocks such as the offered lot. The rarity and durability of the stone contributed to its selection by Fabergé for use in Imperial commissions, where it appeared frequently as bases or columns. Notable Imperial examples are the Fabergé 25th Anniversary Clock now in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum, and an egg-shaped frame belonging to the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, sold in these rooms May 17th, 2024, lot 82007.



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