![]() I was re-offered the Egg in March 2018 for a cool €55,000,000 – by ‘Hal’ Pollock, a self-styled ‘lawyer, author, entrepreneur and songwriter’ (well, that’s what he calls himself on Twitter) from Cleveland, Ohio. Skurlov made a three-hour presentation, after which I hope everyone was given a stiff vodka. Kieran McCarthy, Geza von Habsburg, Carol Aiken and the Russian Culture Ministry opted out in came Moscow Armory Museum Curator Tatiana Muntyan John Atzbach (‘largest specialist Fabergé dealer in the USA and the world’ according to Skurlov) and amateur Fabergé researchers Vincent and Anna Palmade. ![]() Mr Skurlov did not reproduce the minutes of this meeting, though he did disclose helpfully that ‘the Egg was dismantled’ and ‘everyone looked.’ Ī second meeting about the Egg, adds Skurlov, took place in New York on. This ‘ Opinion’ talks about an egg inspection scrambled in New York on 27 January 2015 and attended by the Egg’s owner Fabergé specialist Geza von Habsburg restorer Nikolai Bashmakov Wartski Director Kieran McCarthy Sotheby’s Karen Kettering the ex-Forbes Collection’s Carol Aiken a lady from the Russian Culture Ministry and Skurlov himself. The name of the owner was revealed by Svistun’s programme consultant Valentin Skurlov in a 15-page, 9,500-word ‘Opinion’ about the Egg dated 29 June 2015. The article was, admittedly, entitled Fauxbergé. When his Egg was published by the Fabergé Research Site in 2017, a dissatisfied e-mail was received and images of the Egg removed ‘at the owner’s request.’ The Egg is rumoured to have changed hands more than once, and been acquired by its current American owner in 2012. (Note that this Gatchina inventory talks of portraits plural, whereas the oval pearl-frame inside the egg was designed for a single portrait.) Oldenburgsky’ – poor old Alexander III was replaced by a modern double-portrait of his daughter Olga and Prince Peter of Oldenburg, who married in 1901. When a Gatchina Palace inventory turned up in Denmark in 2015 – referring to an ‘egg with gold mounts on two nephrite columns, and portraits inside of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna and Prince P.A. When it was offered to Aurora Fine Art Investments for $2,000,000 in 2005, my reply was unprintable – even though the Link Of Times had recently bought the Forbes Collection, and another Imperial egg would have gone down nicely.īased on a reference in a 1922 Kremlin Armory inventory, to a ‘nephrite egg on a gold stand with a portrait of Alexander III in a medallion,’ a modern miniature of the bearded autocrat was obligingly added to the Egg in 2006. It was smuggled to London in 1996 after being ‘discovered’ by a dealer in St Petersburg. No one, outside a small group of self-interested promoters, believes the Egg is empirically imperial. What’s at stake is a so-called ‘Imperial Empire Egg’ which Skurlov declares to be ‘an unquestionably authentic historical work produced by the House of Fabergé, commissioned by Emperor Nicholas II for the Easter holiday of 1902 and presented to Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna.’ ![]() Having set the scene, the documentary gets down to business. ![]() The programme’s ‘expert consultant’ Valentin Skurlov pops up with the opinion that six more Fabergé eggs could be out there somewhere. Then Svistun hones in on lost Fabergé eggs. He begins with the Russian Revolution and all the property confiscated from the Imperial family by Dzerzhinsky’s Secret Police. Presenter Nikolai Svistun travels the world telling Fabergé tales. It made my blood boil.Īs the title implies, it’s all about rediscovered Romanov treasures. NOT SO LONG AGO I saw a documentary on the Russia-K culture channel called ‘Пропавшие Шедевры Фаберже: Fabergé’s Missing Masterpieces’. ![]()
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