Property from a Private Collection, USA
A Fabergé jewelled silver, agate and guilloché enamel desk clock, workmaster Michael Perchin, St Petersburg, circa 1902
Auction Closed
December 2, 04:59 PM GMT
Estimate
80,000 - 120,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from a Private Collection, USA
A Fabergé jewelled silver, agate and guilloché enamel desk clock, workmaster Michael Perchin, St Petersburg, circa 1902
triangular, enamelled in translucent oyster over a moiré sunburst guilloché ground, centring a white enamel dial within a gold seed-pearl bezel, with dendritic agate cabochons at corners, each within a rose-cut diamond mount, black Arabic chapter and pierced gold hands, the replaced back with circular strut, the back-plate with hand-set, with an engraved inscription ‘To Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna / from P.P. and S.P. Durnovo / 16 August 1902’, struck with workmaster’s initials, 88 standard, with scratched inventory number 6424
height 13.2cm, 5 1/5in.
Thence by descent
Sotheby’s New York, Russian Works of Art and Objects of Vertu, 1 December 1998, lot 319
The collection of Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna was one of the few to escape the Russian Revolution intact. Another important Imperial Presentation tea and coffee set from her collection, also presented by P.P. Durnovo, was given to the Grand Duchess for her wedding at Tsarskoye Selo on 29 (16) August 1902. This rare and important desk clock was presented on the same occasion.
Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia (1882 – 1957), was the only daughter and youngest child of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia and Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Her husband was Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark and they were both first cousins of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, the third son of George I of Greece, first proposed in 1900, but Elena's mother was reluctant to allow her daughter to marry a younger son with uncertain financial prospects. She finally agreed to let Elena marry Nicholas, in 1902, however, when it became clear his was the only offer. The wedding was a grand affair in Tsarskoye Selo and was attended by the Emperor and Empress of Russia, the King and Queen of the Hellenes, and other royal and noble Russians.
Pyotr Pavlovich Durnovo was Moscow's Governor General during the 1905 Russian Revolution. His dacha became the site of an anarchist occupation in 1917.