Jewelled Gold-Mounted Nephrite Charka by Fabergé

workmaster Mikhail Perkhin, St Petersburg, 1899-1903 struck with workmaster’s initials, gold mark of 56 zolotniks, scratched with Fabergé inventory width of nephrite bowl: 10.7 cm width over handle: 12.7 cm

Provenance:

This piece was presented by Tsar Nicholas II to H.M. Sultan Abdul Hamid II

An ovoid shape nephrite bowl in Neo-Renaissance taste with a red gold openwork handle finely decorated with scrolls enamelled in white opaque, translucent red and green, further applied with three turquoise flower heads and surmounted with a large table-cut sapphire and four diamonds, each in a raised black enamel collet, the underside of the handle finely engraved with foliate strapwork and finished with two scroll supports.

The Neo-Renaissance style is restricted in Fabergé’s oeuvre to a small number of showpieces, all by the chief workmaster Mikhail Perkhin, such as the Renaissance Egg presented by Alexander III to his wife Maria Fyodorovna in 1894, now in the Fabergé Museum in St Petersburg, the rock crystal vase from the collection of H.M. Queen Elizabeth II and the rock crystal charger from the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. A similar kovsh in nephrite is in the Treasury Room