Of all of the creations of the House of Fabergé
none possesses the mystique attached to the
Imperial Easter Eggs, for which this master
jeweler is justly famous. And yet, his flagship
establishment at 26 Bolshaya Morskaya in St.
Petersburg, Russia, attracted the rich and famous
from the world over who came to shop at this
exclusive boutique in search beautiful, jewel-
encrusted articles which they would use in their
everyday life. We end to forget in this day of
cyberspace and e-mail messages the fine art of
letter writing, which dominated civilized circles in
our not too distant past. The epistolary arts
required a panoply of appropriate articles from
pens, ink wells, letter openers, signets and seal
rings, to fine furniture at which the author could
sit composing letters in the very literary styles of
the day.
Within this context, primacy of place was
accorded the letter opener, of which the House of
Fabergé designed many. The present example is
an evocation of that very practical, but for clients
of Fabergé’s, deluxe and costly article. It features
a very naturalistic representation of a pug, the
Boston Bull Dog, as its terminal, created with
attention to detail and evocative of Fabergé’s
own animal sculptures in rare stones. In keeping
with the design principles of those sculptures,
this pug wears a collar of gold and its eyes are
diamonds. He sits attentively on a black jade
base, and may have been commissioned by an
individual who, when attending to his mail, was
accompanied by his pet.
The handle of the letter opener is created in
beautiful rhodonite, its dusty rose color
beautifully contrasting with the silver and jade. It
is adorned with three applied elements, namely,
an Imperial Double-Headed Eagle crafted of gold
which was one of the insignia of the Russian
Imperial Tsarist family, and is ultimately based
on the Double Eagle of the ancient Byzantine
Empire; beneath this insignia is a swag occupying
the handle’s center, its ends fastened by means
of diamond-capped fasteners. The final element,
at the bottom, is a profile of a male figure, again
of gold, whose features resemble those of
Nicholas II, the last tsar of the Romanov dynasty,
and patron of Fabergé. The beautifully crafted
blade is attached to this handle by means of a
gold element affixed with ruby-capped fasteners.
Such a letter open is a fitting accessory for those
who value beauty and insist on owning utilitarian
objects whose costly materials and consummate
craftsmanship transcend their practical purposes.
Dr. Robert Steven Bianchi
References:
Robert Steven Bianchi, Fabergé. Exhibition Album
(St. Petersburg 2000), pages 10-12 and for a
succinct biography of Fabergé: and Geza Von
Habsburg, Alexander von Solodkoff, and Robert
Steven Bianchi, Fabergé. Imperial Craftsman and
his World (London 2000), pages 298-312, for his
animal sculptures in rare stones and pages 167,
catalogue number 346, 168, catalogue number
347, and page 284, catalogue number 740, for a
selection of Fabergés letter openers, here termed
paper knives.
