CHAPTER

CHAPTER TWO

From Moscow to Bond Street

Fabergé’s London branch was established and initially run by Henry “Allan” Talbot Bowe, in tandem with his brother Arthur. The collaboration between the Bowe family and Fabergé had begun in Russia. Born in South Africa, Allan was the son of an English doctor who had settled in Springbok, Namaqualand. Allan’s father died when he was young and he returned to England to be schooled. On completing his education, he moved to Moscow to work for his second cousin, James Shanks, a partner in the Magasin Anglais, an outfitters that also sold jewellery and silver. Allan worked there until 1886 when, by chance, he met Carl Fabergé travelling on a train from Russia to Paris. Allan was a capable young man and as they journeyed westwards, he won Fabergé’s confidence. Fabergé, who was considering opening a business in Moscow, recognised Bowe’s potential and asked him to run the new enterprise.

Fabergé’s Moscow branch opened in 1887 as an equal partnership between Bowe and Carl Fabergé. It traded from premises on the corner of Kusnetsky Most and Neglinnaya Street in the centre of Moscow’s luxury goods district. Allan Bowe was in control of the business and under his guidance it grew and prospered. Allan was assimilated into the closely-knit British merchant colony in Moscow and married Emma Billet, a member of the expatriate community in the city. They moved into a large house where they entertained lavishly; their daughter Essie recalled frequent parties at their home and playing with the elaborate Fabergé silver centrepieces that adorned the dinner table.1

Allan’s ambitions were not limited to Russia and the demand for Fabergé in his homeland led him and his brother Arthur to open the London branch in 1903. Its first location was the Berners’ Hotel at 6 & 7 Berners Street, north of Oxford Street. Whether Arthur merely stayed at the hotel on arriving in London or if he opened an office there is not recorded. Shortly afterwards, he relocated to premises incorporating ‘a private reception room’ in Portman House, 415 Oxford Street, on the corner of Duke Street.2 Though Arthur

Henry “Allan” Talbot Bowe.

Opposite page: Fabergé’s Moscow premises.

Photograph courtesy Wartski, London

CHAPTER THREE

Fabergé: A British Royal Fascination

‘He had a rich German accent and smelt deliciously of cigars and eau de Portugal. He wore several rings set with small cabochon rubies and a cigarette case made of ribbed gold, no doubt by Fabergé. A Fabergé cigarette case was the emblem of Royalty, as symbolical as the bookies’ cigar, or the

ostler’s straw.’ Violet Trefusis describing King Edward VII1

Fabergé was the last flowering of Court art and this was equally true in England as it was in Russia. Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII, was Fabergé’s foremost customer in London. Bainbridge even described the opening of the London branch as a ‘modest gesture’ by Fabergé towards her. He compared her patronagewith that of the Russian Emperors and described her as the the firm’s ‘Great patroness’.2 The joy that The Queen derived from Fabergé’s works was infectious and spread through her family; King Edward VII joined her in buying the firm’s workand her son King George V became one of its most discerning customers.

The firm’s creations were a common sight in Royal residences and were exchanged at Royal family events. In his memoirs, The Duke of Windsor fondly remembered Edwardian Christmases at Sandringham, where the Royal family gathered to celebrate the holiday. The display of the Christmas tree and the exchange of gifts took place on Christmas Eve. A servant dressed as ‘Santa Claus’ led the Royal party to the ballroom, at the centre of which stood a fir tree with blazing candles in its branches. Around the tree, which had been cut down from the surrounding woods, tables were arranged by precedence and heaped with presents for each family member. The children’s tables were segregated from the rest and placed in a far corner. The Duke of Windsor explained that this precaution was taken in order to ‘safeguard a precious Fabergé jade masterpiece or bejewelled clock on my Grandmother’s table from becoming the casualty of a wild shot from a toy gun or misdirected football.’3

Opposite page: Her Majesty Queen Alexandra (1844-1925), wife of King Edward VII, sister of the Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna, and Fabergé’s foremost customer in London. The Queen was famed for her feminine complexion, grace of movement and good dress. Her beauty did not fade as she aged. J.B. Priestly, the English playwright, remembered ladies in his mother’s circle discussing The Queen’s youthful looks and concluding that her face must be like many of Fabergé’s works, ‘enamelled’.

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London