A Fabergé Chalcedony and Diamond-Mounted Gold Pill Box. Fabergé, Workmaster Anna Ringe, St. Petersburg, 1899-1908 . 2-1/...

Description

A Fabergé Chalcedony and Diamond-Mounted Gold Pill Box
Fabergé, Workmaster Anna Ringe, St. Petersburg, 1899-1908
2-1/8 x 0-7/8 inches (5.4 x 2.2 cm)
28 grams

PROVENANCE:
Lynette G. Brown Proler, Houston;
Fabergé Heritage Collection, Inv. No. 12.

EXHIBITED:
Fabergé at Harrods, April 1-21, 2014, cat. 50.

ILLUSTRATED:
Habsburg, G., ed., Fabergé at Harrods, Harrods, London: 2014, p. 28, cat. no. 50.

This beautiful and delicate pillbox mounted with diamonds comes from the workrooms of Anna Ringe. Anna Karlovna Ringe (1840-1912) was associated with the House of Fabergé through her husband, Philip Theodor Ringe (1824-1894), a Riga-born silversmith. Philip operated a workshop at Malaya Morskaya, 12. After his death in 1894, Anna took over the workshop's management.

Though not a trained silversmith, Anna continued the business, a common practice in Imperial Russia, where widows of masters were allowed to maintain workshops under their late husbands' marks. Skilled artisans like Anders Mickelson and Vassily Soloviev helped operate the workshop, which remained active until 1912.

Under Anna's management, the workshop produced high-quality Fabergé objects, including a tri-color gold and guilloché enamel pen holder, purchased by Emperor Nicholas II in 1902, and a silver and enamel pencil/magnifier (1899-1908) bearing her mark. While she did not create the pieces herself, her leadership ensured the workshop's continued success. By 1912, Mickelson and Soloviev had taken over, and Anna's involvement ceased.

The work later came into the collection of the late Lynette G. Brown Proler (1943-2020), one of the co-authors of the seminal work "The Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs" published by Christie's in 1997.



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