1990s A. Kenneth Snowman's Faberge: Lost and Found Decorative and Illustrated Book

Description

Title: Faberge: Lost and Found - The Recently Discovered Jewelry Designs from the St. Petersburg Archives.
Author: A. Kenneth Snowman. … more Title: Faberge: Lost and Found - The Recently Discovered Jewelry Designs from the St. Petersburg Archives.
Author: A. Kenneth Snowman.
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams.
Place: New York, N.Y., USA.
Publication date: 1993 copyright.
Printed and bound in Italy.

Description: 176 p. Qto. 1993. Publisher's red cloth hardcover, gilt stamped/embossed title on spine cover and front cover, glossy color illustrated dust jacket, 205 illustrations, including 169 plates in full color.

Measures: 1 W x 8.75 D x 11.5 H inches.

About the jeweler and the work: For more than twenty-five years Carl Faberge and his firm served as jeweler and goldsmith to the tsars of Russia, European royalty, and the powerful and influential throughout the world. The enchanting Imperial Easter Eggs, gold boxes, flowers in crystal vases, animal and bird carvings, as well as necklaces, earrings, pendants, rings, and diadems created by the House of Faberge in the late 1800s and early 1900s are known the world over for their superb craftsmanship and originality.
In Faberge: Lost and Found author A. Kenneth Snowman tells the story of his recent and astonishing discovery of two of the original design books from the workshops of the House of Faberge in St. Petersburg. Within the pages of these record books are countless meticulous watercolor and ink drawings of, it seems every jewel that was made by the firm from 1909 to 1915. Each design is dated and accompanied by detailed handwritten instructions as to type, number, and weight of gemstones, precious metal setting, and color of enameling to be used in carrying out the piece. Hundreds of these invaluable -- and incredibly beautiful -- drawings are reproduced here for the first time, most in full color, with captions describing the jewel, the materials to be used, and the date of execution. And very often the actual finished jewels are photographed next to the drawings from which they were created.
Among the ingenious treasures are jewels made specially for the 300th anniversary celebration of the House of Romanoff and the famous miniature and large Imperial Easter Eggs -- including one owned by Queen Elizabeth II -- in a variety that seems as endless as the demand for these objects so beloved by the Russian and European aristocracy. Also included are drawings for the frost flower brooches and pendants that the nephew of Alfred Nobel used to give to ladies attending his dinners. And amid the columns of pendants, brooches, tiepins, cuff links, earrings, hair combs, diadems, necklaces, rings, and bracelets, one comes to a full-page drawing of one of Faberge's flower studies, a spray of forget-me-nots in a vase, with indication of exactly how the flower and rock-crystal vase--filled halfway with "water"--was to be carried out.
A. Kenneth Snowman is chairman and grandson of the founder of Wartski, the eminent London jewelry firm that has helped form many of the outstanding Faberge collections of the world. (Dust jacket - front fly leaf) less