An extremely rare Fabergé Renaissance Revival style nephrite kovsh with an enamel & jeweled mount, workmaster Michael Perchin, Saint Petersburg, circa 1890 with scratched inventory number 52149. Of rounded triangular form, carved of nephrite with a stepped base, mounted with an openwork handle having scrolls in red, blue, & white enamel, set with five small diamonds & a large central diamond. Dimensions: 1 1/8″ h x 3 5/8″ x 2 3/8″ d ( 2.8 x 9.2 x 6 cm).
Provenance:
Bulgari, Rome
Sotheby’s London, July 9, 1959, lot 125.
Renaissance Revival style objects are extremely rare in Fabergé’s production. All of the few known examples, including this carved nephrite kovsh, were produced in the workshop of Fabergé workmaster Michael Perchin. Inspired in part by Karl Fabergé’s study of the treasures of Dresden’s Green Vaults, other examples in this group include: the 1894 Imperial Renaissance Egg (Link of Times Foundation, Russia); a smoky quartz cup, 1899-1903, purchased by Leopold de Rothschild from Fabergé’s London branch in 1912 (Private Collection); a rock crystal vase presented by the same collector to King George V & Queen Mary on their Coronation & now in the Royal Collection (RCIN 8949); a covered smoky quartz cup which sold, Sotheby’s Geneva, 17 May 1984, lot 667, & Sotheby’s New York, 16 April 2008, lot 411 (Private Collection); a large nephrite tray presented by the Dutch Colony of St Petersburg to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on the occasion of her wedding in 1901 (illustrated, G. von Habsburg-Lothringen & A. von Solodkoff, Fabergé: Court Jeweller to the Tsars, Fribourg, 1979, p. 37); the Monomakh Crown Beaker of jeweled gold & smoky topaz (illustrated, G. von Habsburg & M. Lopato, Fabergé: Imperial Jeweller, London, 1993, p. 259); a charka, its handle comparable to that of the present lot, which sold, Christie’s Geneva, 19 November 1991, lot 357; a bowenite charka, sold, Sotheby’s Zurich, 19 November 1976, lot 230; a nephrite box, its lid comparable to the handle of the present lot (illustrated, G. von Habsburg, Fabergé: Imperial Craftsman & His World, 2000, no. 351, p. 168); & a silver-gilt mounted rock crystal dish of 1896 in the collection of the Hermitage, which is based on the design of a seventeenth-century dish in the Kremlin Armoury.