Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna: A Fabergé silver and guilloché enamel desk clock, workmaster Henrik Wigström, St Petersburg, 1904-1908
Lot Closed
May 15, 11:12 AM GMT
Estimate
55,000 - 75,000 CHF
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Read more.Lot Details
Description
square, the surface of translucent pink enamel over wavy engine-turning, within chased silver leaftip borders, the bezel framed by seed pearls, ivorine reverse, curved strut, struck to edge with Fabergé in Cyrillic, workmaster's initials, 91 standard, scratched inventory number 16556
height 10.3 cm; 4 in.
Jointly purchased by Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna from the Fabergé St Petersburg branch on the 7th of August, 1908 for 265 rubles;
Gallerie Rotmann, Cologne
Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Fabergé, Hofjuwelier der Zaren, December - February 1987, no.415
Stockholm, National Museum, Carl Fabergé, Goldsmith to the Tsars, June - October 1997, no.142
Gosudarstvennyi muzei-zapovednik Pavlovsk: Polnyi katalog kollektsii, vol. IX, p. 180;
G. von Habsburg, Fabergé, Hofjuwelier der Zaren, Munich, 1986, no.415, p.225;
A. von Solodkoff, Carl Fabergé, Goldsmith to the Tsars, Stockholm, 1997, no.142, p.170
With its intricate engine-turning featuring undulating waves of different sizes, and chased silver mounts of unusually high purity, it comes as no surprise that the present desk clock was purchased by royalty. As evidenced by in the Pavlovsk Palace Inventory, this beautifully crafted clock was originally a joint purchase by Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich (first cousin once removed and brother-in-law to Tsar Nicholas II) and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna (daughter of Tsar Alexander III and sister of Tsar Nicholas II).
It is also interesting to note the similarity between the present desk clock and another silver-mounted pink guilloché enamel clock executed by Wigström, belonging to the noble family of Hesse, illustrated in P. Hunter-Steibel, Hesse: a princely German collection, Seattle, 2005, p. 164. The clock in the Hesse Family Collection bears the scratched inventory number 16554, suggested these clocks were made in close succession.
We are grateful to Dmitry Krivoshey for his assistance with the research of the present lot.