Faberge Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia

The Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, is a privately owned museum which was established by Viktor Vekselberg and his Link of Times foundation in order to repatriate lost cultural valuables to Russia. The museum is located in the center of Saint Petersburg at Shuvalov Palace (21, Fontanka River Embankment) on the Fontanka River. The museum’s collection contains more than 4,000 works of decorative applied and fine arts, including gold and silver items, paintings, porcelain and bronze. A highlight of the museum’s collection is the group of nine Imperial Easter eggs created by Fabergé for the last two Russian Tsars.

Fabergé Museum in St. Petersburg was founded to preserve, study, and promote Russia’s cultural heritage as well as to develop the city’s extensive network of museums. The museum’s collection contains the world’s largest collection of works by Carl Fabergé, including nine of the famous Imperial Easter Eggs, regarded not only as the finest jeweled works of art, but also as unique historical artifacts. The museum’s collection also includes decorative and applied works made by the Russian masters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

History
The idea of creating a special museum devoted to the creative work of the great Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé came to the Link of Times foundation after the purchase by Vekselberg in 2004 of a unique collection of Fabergé masterpieces that had been owned by the late Malcolm Forbes. Since then, the Link of Times foundation began building a collection of Russian decorative applied and fine arts, which contains more than 4,000 works. All of the Imperial Easter eggs in the museum’s collection are connected to the rule and personal life of the last two Russian emperors — Alexander III and Nicolas II.

The Link of Times foundation began restoring the 18th-century Shuvalov Palace (which is rented by the foundation) in St. Petersburg in 2006, with the goal of opening the museum in the palace. A significant amount of work was done over seven years to recreate the historical appearance of the palace. This was the first full-fledged restoration of the palace in its entire 200-year history. The official opening ceremony of the Fabergé Museum took place on 19 November 2013.

Shuvalov Palace
The Shuvalov Palace or Naryshkin-Shuvalov Palace (Russian: Шуваловский Дворец; Дворец Нарышкиных-Шуваловых) is a neoclassical palace on the Fontanka River in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Once home to the noble Shuvalov and Naryshkin families, the building has housed the Fabergé Museum since 2013.

Private ownership
The details of the construction are unknown, but the Naryshkin-Shuvalov Palace was constructed in the late 18th century, possibly to a design by Italian architect Giacomo Quarenghi. The first owners of the palace were the Count and Countess Vorontsov.

In 1799, Maria Naryshkina, born Princess Maria Czetwertyńska-Światopełk (who was a Polish noble and was for 13 years the mistress of Tsar Alexander I) purchased the palace. Her husband, Dmitri Lvovich Naryshkin, filled it with spectacular art and marble sculptures, as well as antiquities including gems, coins, and weapons. The palace became the center of the Saint Petersburg society, and its grand ballroom — also known as the Alexandrovsky or White Column Hall — played host to society balls of up to 1,000 people. The most famous ball was held on 29 April [O.S. 17 April] 1834 to celebrate the 16th birthday of the tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich, the future Emperor Alexander II.

In 1844, the palace underwent extensive renovation for the wedding of Sofia Lvovna Naryshkina, the only daughter of Lev Naryshkin and Olga Potocka, to Count Pyotr Pavlovich Shuvalov. After the 1846 wedding, the palace became known as the Naryshkin-Shuvalov Palace. The renovation of the Naryshkin-Shuvalov Palace would continue until 1859, during which time it was redone in a neo-Renaissance style by the French architect Bernard de Simone and Russian Nikolai Yefimovich Yefimov.

When World War I began in 1914, the last owner of the palace, Yelizaveta Vladimirovna Shuvalova, donated the house to be used as a military hospital for wounded soldiers. The great ballroom was used as an officer’s ward. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Shuvalov Palace was nationalized on 1 August 1918.

Soviet era
After the Revolution, the palace’s celebrated artwork and antiquities were strategically hidden in secret hiding spots. The first items were discovered in 1919 when the World War I infirmary was removed. A large pantry was discovered under the fireplace in the “Blue Room,” containing paintings, porcelain and Limoges enamel.

From 1919 to 1925, the “Museum of Aristocratic Life” operated in the palace. Following the closing of the museum, the majority of the Shuvalov collections were transferred to the Hermitage Museum and the Russian Museum, while some of the items remained in the museum fund.

The palace then served as a print house followed by a design institute in the 1930s. During the Siege of Leningrad, shelling and bombing heavily damaged the palace. On 14 September 1941, a bomb completely destroyed the courtyard wing. An incendiary bomb caused even greater damage when it went through the roof into the attic above the Alexander Hall, starting a devastating fire that caused the roof to collapse.

The collection
The Fabergé Museum’s collection has nine Imperial Easter eggs that were made to the order of the last two Romanov Tsars — the Emperors Alexander III and Nicolas II. The eggs were bought by Vekselberg in 2004 from the family of the American newspaper magnate Malcolm Forbes. He purchased them just before they came up for auction, paying $100 million for the Forbes family’s entire Fabergé collection.

In total, there are fifteen Fabergé eggs in the Blue Room of Shuvalov Palace, as well as a miniature picture frame in the form of a heart — the surprise from the lost Mauve egg of 1897.

Exhibition Halls

Grand Staircase
The Grand Staircase was constructed in the 1840s at the main entrance to the palace. The staircase was built by the architect Nikolai Efimov and is fringed by a series of sculptures. Years after its completion, the architect Rudolph Bogdanovich Berngard erected the exquisite decorative stucco dome over the staircase.

Knights’ Hall
Military-themed works of art. Life in the Russian army in the mid-19th century is portrayed in the watercolors of Karl Piratskiy and his successor, Pyotr Balashov. The works of these battle-genre artists are rarely found in museum collections and little is known about them; however, both artists enjoyed well-deserved recognition in their time. The Knights’ Hall is named for the frieze encompassing the room, which depicts a medieval tournament of knights.

Red Room
Russian silver. The Red Room is dedicated to a collection of Russian silver works, produced from the 18th to the beginning of the 20th centuries. The room’s displays showcase spectacular works by the top Petersburg firms that also carried the honor of Supplier of the Highest Court (C. Fabergé, P. Sazikov, Nichols and Plinke, the Grachev brothers, Tegelsten).

Blue Room
Easter Eggs by Fabergé. The central hall of the Shuvalov Palace contains the Imperial Easter Eggs and surprises made for the last of the Romanovs – the Emperors Alexander III and Nicholas II. These remarkable works each tell their own unique story and made Fabergé a world-renowned brand.

Gold Room
Gifts from the Tsars, objets de fantaisie made by House of Fabergé, and jeweled boxes. Many of the items exhibited in the Gold Room are associated with the Romanov dynasty and their foreign relatives. The objets de fantaisie, made by the masters of the House of Fabergé, are particularly noteworthy, as are the jeweled boxes decorated with portraits of Russian emperors.

Anteroom
Jewelry, small items, accessories, and clocks. The Anteroom contains a collection of household items once owned by the wealthy and which demonstrate the rich color palette of guilloché enamel, as well as jewelry–the least-preserved items of the Fabergé legacy.

White and Blue Room
Enamel work from the firm of Pavel Ovchinnikov and Moscow cooperatives. Russian porcelain from the 19th century. The White and Blue Room displays works of enamel from the workshops of Pavel Ovchinnikov and also presents outstanding examples of Russian porcelain.

Exhibition Room
Stone carvings by the House of Fabergé and their contemporaries. Russian paintings from the 19th century. The Exhibition Room, known by the first Shuvalovs as the Great Study, once house the family’s personal museum. Today, the Exhibition Room is home to stone carvings by Fabergé and paintings by nineteenth century Russian artists.

Gothic Hall
Russian icons. The Gothic Hall, once the study of Count Pyotr Shuvalov, features a collection of Russian icons from the 16th-20th centuries, most of which are clad in frames and covers of precious metals made by famous jewelers from Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Upper Dining Room
Turn of the 20th Century Russian and European paintings. On display in the Upper Dining Room are paintings by Russian and French impressionists and neoimpressionists from the end of the 19th-beginning of the 20th centuries. Special attention should be given to the works of August Renoir and the great Russian impressionist Konstantin Korovin. A prominent piece is the Palace Vase, painted by Fyodor Krasovsky.

Beige Room
Russian enamel. The Beige Room offers visitors a look at the various shapes and styles of everyday tableware in Imperial Russia. On display are also cigarette cases which illustrate various silver working and enamel decorating techniques.

Today, the Shuvalov Palace, with an area of about 4,700 square meters, is again one of the most beautiful palaces in St. Petersburg, a historical monument, and tourist attraction.

Currently, the museum’s collection has more than 4,000 items, among which, in addition to the famous Easter eggs, are fantasy items, silverware, interior and religious items, as well as jewelry created by Faberge. Also in the museum’s collection are works by contemporaries and rivals of Faberge — masters of jewelry I. Sazikov, P. Ovchinnikov, F. Rückert, I. Khlebnikov and many others. The exhibition hall of the museum presents paintings by I. Aivazovsky, K. Makovsky, K. Bryullov, V. Ammon, V. Polenov, G. Semiradsky and female portraits of A. Kharlamov. In the Upper Buffet Palace of the Naryshkin-Shuvalovs, the works of P.O. Renoir, Louis Walt, Henri Martin, K. Korovin and K. Gorbatov are posted. A collection of Russian icons is exhibited in the Gothic hall of the palace. The Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg is rightfully proud ofCarl Gustav Faberge in the period from 1885 to 1916.