 The
Swiss jeweller Franz Petrovich Birbaum joined Faberge in 1893,
and after the death of Agathon Faberge in 1895, became chief
designer of the firm. He was an eminent lapidary, a specialist
in enamelling techniques, and a remarkable draughtsman. His
advent coincides with the introduction of Faberge's Art Nouveau
idiom and the fading out of the Louis XV, or 'cockerel' style,
to be replaced by the more classical Louis , XVI and Empire
styles. Birbaum's role must have been ! considerable, as he
claims to have designed most of the Imperial Easter eggs produced
after 1900. About 50 or 60 of these eggs were made and I composed
more than half of them myself. It was not easy work as there
could be no repetition of theme and the ovoid shape was compulsory.
By the
beginning of the new century, Faberge's business had become
the most important of its kind in Russia. Production increased
daily and it became necessary to assign goldwork to one workshop
and subsequently silverwork to another. The. brothers Faberge
had too much work and were unable to run the workshops properly,
so they decided to establish autonomous workshops, whose owners
would undertake to work only to their sketches and models
of the firm and exclusively for it . . . Each was allocated
a specific form of production and their apprentices specialised
in different forms of work. . . . The St. Petersburg workshops
employed some 200 or 300 people before 1914. They were scattered
all over the city until the firm built special premises in
the Morskaya street. Afterwards the chief workshops were accommodated
in the outbuildings in the courtyard but for reasons of lack
of space some of them remained outside the main building.
After the Paris 1900 exhibition, and the international acclaim
that came with it, all doors opened to Faberge. His shop in
London became the meeting place of Edwardian society. His
St. Petersburg showrooms attracted Russian nobility by the
score. The Grand Dukes and Duchesses came with pleasure and
spent a long time choosing their purchases. Every day from
4 to 5 all the St. Petersburg aristocracy could be seen there:
the titled, the Civil Service and the commercial In Holy Week
these rendez-vous were particularly crowded as everyone hurried
to buy the traditional Easter eggs and, at the same time,
to glance at the egg made for the Emperor.
In 1902, Faberge was given the final accolade
with a special charity exhibition held to benefit the Imperial
Women's Patriotic Society Schools. Sponsored by Tsarina Alexandra
Feodorovna, it was dedicated almost exclusively to Faberge's
works, most pieces were lent by members of the Imperial Family.
Photographs of this exhibition and descriptions in the press
allow identification of a number of Faberge's most important
compositions.
During the 1900s Faberge was inundated with
orders. In the decade between 1907 and 1917, over 10,000 objects
were sold in London alone. As of 1904, Faberge also worked
for the Siamese court. American clients arrived, anchoring
their yachts on the Neva. The House of Faberge became a family
concern, with Carl's three sons, Eugene, Agathon, and Alexander,
acting as designers alongside Birbaum. At its peak, some three
hundred craftsmen worked in St. Petersburg and two hundred
in Moscow, yet it still became necessary to pass orders to
craftsmen outside the firm. Approximately 150,000 items were
sold worldwide.
The period of Henrik Wigstrom, Faberge's last
head workmaster (1903-1917), lacked the exciting inventiveness
of his predecessor. After the disappearance of Art Nouveau's
exuberance from Faberge's designs, his style became drier
and more classical. Although quality is still outstanding,
the introduction of prefabricated parts documents the imprint
of the industrial era on Faberge. Typically for Faberge, novelties
continued to appear regularly each year. Some of Faberge's
strongly geometrical designs even seem to herald a nascent
Art Deco style.
For Faberge, the apotheosis of Romanov rule
in 1913, with the lavish festivities for the Tercentenary
celebrations, spelled out a last flurry of new orders. He
designed and produced vast quantities of objects and jewels
bearing the Romanov emblem and the date 1613-1913, such as
the Kremlin's Romanov Tercentenary egg. For example, the Imperial
Cabinet files list 47 pins with the Romanov griffin attributed
to Andreev's Grand Russian Orchestra, 135 tie-pins decorated
with the Monomakh crown, and 43 similar brooches for the Moscow
theatre's actors.
With the declaration of war, Faberge's era,
that of Imperial munificence, soon came to a close. After
the first euphoric victories, major losses occurred and hardship
set in for all. Typically, the two eggs produced for Easter
1915 reflect the activities of the Empress and her daughters
with the Red Cross. As of September 1915, Faberge's workshops
began to suffer from a lack of skilled craftsmen due to conscription.
Several letters addressed to the Office of the Imperial Court
Ministry request exemption for twenty-three members of Faberge's
staff, including Kremlyev ('in case of his calling up the
workshop has to be closed down') and Petuchov ('the only experienced
master in enamel technique left who trained for such work
for 8 years').
Faberge's list of unfinished commissions between
1 July 1914 and 1 October 1916 totalled 286,305 roubles: 80,000
roubles for the Imperial Cabinet, 53,000 for Grand Duke Mikhail
Aleksandrovich, and 33,000 for the Emperor. In October 1915
he mentioned 'the commissions of His Imperial Majesty for
the big egg of white quartz and nephrite demanding exquisite
artistic work', and 2,200 badges for the Horse Artillery Life
Guard 'given personally to me by H.I.H. the Grand Duke Andrei
Vladimirovich'. The Moscow silver factory was converted into
making hand grenades and produced two million casings for
artillery shells. Odessa was reduced from thirty-five masters
to three specialists. One of the two eggs presented by the
Tsar for Easter 1916 is the stark Military egg, formed of
artillery shells containing a miniature of Nicholas and the
Tsarevich at the front in Stavka.
On 6 November 1916, Faberge, as a precaution,
formed a shareholder company (joint-stock association) with
Averkiev, Bauer, Byiazov, and Marchetti as associates each
holding twenty-one shares for a value of 90,000 roubles fully
paid. Faberge held 548 shares for himself, allotting forty
shares to each of his sons and one share each to Antoni, Birbaum,
Meier, and Jouves, corresponding to equity put in by Faberge's
house and estimated at 700,000 roubles.
The year 1917 witnessed the collapse of the old world order,
with the March Revolution, the abdication of the Tsar on 15
March, the imprisonment of the Imperial Family, and the November
Revolution. The firm was put in the hands of a 'Committee
of the Employees of the K. Faberge Company', which continued
to operate until November 1918. At the end of 1917, Faberge
closed down his house, entrusting its contents to the Director
of the Hermitage, left Russia via Riga and Germany, and settled
in Lausanne, Switzerland. There he died on 24 September 1920.
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