a rare fabergé bowenite cube-form table clock mounted in gilded silver, workmaster michael perchin, st. petersburg, circa 1900

a clock watch repeater, the border of the white enamel dial enameled with translucent strawberry red panels separated by white enamel dots, the top and sides of the bowenite cube bordered by applied gilded foliage, the top centered by a handle rising from anthemion, with moonstone repeater push, the base with ribbon-tied reeded border, raised on four bun supports, marked with Cyrillic initials of workmaster, Fabergé in Cyrillic and 88 standard, also with scratched number 4820.

Sold, Sotheby's, New York, March 1, 1980, lot 445

Fabergé used a rich array of hardstones in the production of various desk accessories including boxes, small bowls, letter openers, et al. Cube clocks such as the present example are amongst the rarest of these hardstone creations. Fabergé’s lapidaries were able to choose from an abundance of stones gleaned from deposits in the Ural Mountains, the Caucasus and Siberia, as well as from foreign sources. Extensive use was made of nephrite, a form of jade. In this clock, however, a more subtle stone, known as bowenite, was chosen. It was usually described as “pale jade” but in fact it is not jade at all, but a hard form of serpentine. It was named after the scientist, G. T. Bowen, who distinguished this stone from jade in 1822 and published his findings in the American Journal of Science. See, A. Kenneth Snowman, The Art of Carl Fabergé, London, 1962, p.58. For another hardstone cube clock in lapis-lazuli, see, Gerard Hill, Fabergé and the Russian Master Goldsmiths, Levin, New York, 1989, pl.152.