|  Viktor
Vekselberg, Chairman of board of directors of The Russian
Open Society “ SUAL-HOLDING” has purchased Faberge Eggs Collection
from successors to Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) and has made
it accessible to the Russian citizens. Sale of the Forbes’
collection from auction “Sotheby’s” in the beginning of 2004
(though some tens of items from the Forbes’ collection have
been already sold two or three years earlier) could make objects
channel off in separate collections and countries. Purchasing
of the whole collection by V.Vekselberg before advertised
bidding has become unprecedented in auction practice.
Some interesting facts about Vekselberg Faberge Eggs Collection
The Savior of the imperial collection accused of taking a
counterfeit
Antiquarian Scandal from "Kommersant"
“Spring Flowers", one
of the Easter eggs bought by Viktor Vekselberg in the spring
of 2004 from inheritors of the Forbes fortune, is a counterfeit,
according to Valentin Skurlov, an expert in the Russian department
of Christie's auction house. Vekselberg's representatives
do not doubt the authenticity of the object, however.
In January of this year, an article was published on the
website of the Russian National Museum, which owns the second
largest (after Vekselberg's) private collection of Faberge
items in Russia, by well-known art expert Valentin Skurlov
and Tatiana Faberge, great-granddaughter of the famous jeweler,
in which it is claimed that the egg known as “Spring Flowers”
made by Mikhail Perkhin is a counterfeit.
Tatiana Faberge was born in Geneva in 1930. She worked for
38 years as secretary of the Theory Division of the European
Organization for Nuclear Research and knows six languages.
She also worked with her father Fedor Faberge as a designer
of jewelry “in the style of Faberge.” She is an honorary representative
of the Carl Faberge Memorial Foundation and a bearer of the
Order of Carl Faberge, second degree.
Valentin Skurlov was born in Leningrad in 1947. He graduated
from the Leningrad Trade Institute. From 1985 to 1999, he
was a department head and senior scientist at the Scientific
Research Institute of the Jewelry Industry. He has been a
researcher and consultant on Faberge for the Russian division
of Christie's Auction House since 1996. He is a bearer of
the Order of Carl Faberge, first degree.
Their announcement was giving sensational treatment in the
press a month after it was first published. A number of questions
came up at once, the main one of which was why the Faberge
experts chose that moment, a year after the deal was made
for the egg, to their speak up.
Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg obtained the Faberge
collection through the Sotheby's Auction House in February
2004, without even waiting for it to come up for auction.
The Link of Times not-for-profit organization set up by Vekselberg
bought nine imperial Easter eggs and another 190 items made
by the jewelry firm. The items came from the collection of
Forbes magazine founder Malcolm Forbes and were estimated
to cost over $100 million.
Forbes began collecting articles from the Russian court jeweler
in 1960 and developed the largest private collection of Faberge
in the world. He had just one imperial Easter egg less than
the Armoury Chamber at the Kremlin. After the magnate's death
in 1990, his heirs began to sell the collection. Christie's
sold 69 items in 2002. The rest o f the collection was to
be disposed of through Sotheby's in April 2004. However, Vekselberg
convinced the Forbes family to sell everything to him without
an auction, promising to keep the items together and return
them to Russia. He kept his word. The items were returned
to their historical homeland and soon put on display at the
Hermitage and Kremlin. Vekselberg was thus able to obtain
the world's biggest private collection of Faberge and a reputation
as a patriot.
After analyzing archival material and specialized literature
and comparing Spring Flowers with typologically similar Faberge
imperial Easter eggs (it is made of red enamel with a “surprise,”
a basket of flowers hidden inside it) and counterfeits, or
Fauxberge, as they are called, Skurlov came to the conclusion
that the egg was made in 1961 and has no connection with the
Carl Faberge firm. Several factors determined this finding,
but Skurlov emphasized the following: “On the lower rim, which
is encrusted with diamonds, the quality of their attachment
is very poor, and the diamonds are not standard, they are
all of different sizes. That is absolutely not characteristic
of Faberge production.” Skurlov is so sure of the correctness
of his conclusions that he said in a television interview
that “It costs $15,000 to make an egg like that.”
Forbes, who bought the egg in 1966, was sure that it was
an imperial Easter egg. However, it was demonstrated in a
number of publications in the 1990s that it is not imperial,
since it has an inventory number, and inventory numbers were
given only to eggs sold in Faberge's store. Nonetheless, art
experts had not doubted the authenticity of the egg until
now, not at the Hermitage or the Kremlin or anywhere else.
This was confirmed by Mark Schaffer, a representative of the
well-known antiquary store La Vieille Russie in New York City,
where the egg was first sold in 1961. He told Kommersant by
telephone, “Theoretically, the egg might really not be imperial,
but there can be no question of it being counterfeit. I have
no information about whether or not Mr. Vekselberg obtained
the egg as imperial, or how much he obtained it for. You have
to ask him that yourself. For those reasons, it is hard for
me to say how Mr. Skurlov's statement will affect the price
of the egg.”
Andrey Storkh, a representative of the Link of Times foundation
told Kommersant that there is no doubt of the authenticity
of Spring Flowers, that Skurlov has not examined the egg himself
and that his conclusions are nonsense. “We have one question,”
Storkh said. “that is what he can determine from photographs.
The egg had been on the market since 1961 and one imagines
that it has been seen and held in the hands of the world's
leading specialists. It has a solid provenance.” Now lawyers
from the Link of Times are examining to what extent Skurlov's
statement has damaged the foundation's reputation and it is
possible that a suit will be filed in that connection. The
foundation is also considering contacting law enforcement
agencies (maybe not exclusively Russian) to ask that they
investigate the motivation of the statements. The Link of
Times has information that “the agitation around the egg in
the Viktor Vekselberg collection may be connected to interested
parties who want to purge the market in order to place another
counterfeit on it.”
In any other sphere of the antiquarian market, the discovery
of a counterfeit automatically lowers the price for similar
pieces. But it is different for the eggs. There is a list
of items confiscated from Empress Maria Fedorovna in 1917
where all the gifts made to the imperial family for the two
previous decades are listed. If it is shown that the egg is
mentioned on that list, its price will immediately soar. That
in fact happened with Spring Flowers when it was declared
imperial. Then it was shown that it is not imperial, and the
next step was to declare it counterfeit. On the 1917 list,
there is an entry for a “pouch-egg of red enamel.” If another
egg turns up that fits that meager description in place of
the one just declared counterfeit, it would sell very for
a very high price. Kommersant has learned that the so-called
Metzger Egg from the collection of Michel Kommedian is being
offered for sale. Skurlov mentioned in his commentary for
Kommersant that it looks nothing like Spring Flowers, but
more like Bouquet of Lilies, which is in the Armoury Chamber.
Sensational finds of new eggs do happen. In 2002, fragments
of the last, unfinished Faberge egg, The Prince's Constellation,
were found in a storeroom of the Fersman Mineralogical Museum.
The Russian National Museum presented another late Faberge
imperial egg at a recent antiquarian salon in Moscow. That
egg was wooden, made of Karelian birch. Those finds had documentary
confirmation.
If other experts agree with Skurlov's conclusions, Vekselsberg's
foundation will have no choice but to make a claim against
Sotheby's. Here Vekselberg runs up against his decision to
buy the items before they reached auction. Sotheby's takes
full responsibility for the items sold at its auctions, but
the auction house was only served as an intermediary and provided
no guarantee.
The Idea that I Cannot Examine the Egg without Holding It
in My Hands Is a Primitive Point of View
Valentin Skurlov's comments for "Kommersant"
When I read Geza von Habsburg's book Faberge: Treasures of
Imperial Russia, published by the Link of Times Foundation
with a multitude of errors, especially the falsified story
of the sale of the egg through state firm Antikvariat in the
1930s, my patience was exhausted. The idea that I cannot examine
the egg without holding it in my hands is a primitive point
of view. It is not always necessary. I saw it through glass
about five times. It is too bad that they did not buy the
collection through Sotheby's. Then there would have been a
pre-auction examination a week in advance and experts from
the world over would be able to examine it. Now no one knows
who examined the collection before the (I emphasize this)
direct sale of the collection by the Forbes to Vekselberg.
I don't think that one counterfeit egg casts a shadow over
the whole collection, but it is a bad apple.
I think that no appropriate full examination was made of
the Faberge items from the Forbes collection. No metallurgical
examination was made, for example. The basket of an 1892 egg
is made of gold and platinum, but Faberge started using platinum
only in 1908. I am a specialist in Faberge and can guarantee
that the attribution does not meet the norms of Assay Instructions.
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