THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 13, 1995 TAG: 9509130418
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
To its own clutch of five ornate Easter eggs fashioned by master jeweler Peter Carl Faberge for the last czars of Russia, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts will add others from around the nation in an exhibition next summer.
Faberge, an artist of great talent, displayed, on occasion, remarkable sang-froid.
Once he was riding alone in an open carriage in a parade when the bottom fell out.
It is precisely the sort of disaster that would befall me were I ever, by some wild mischance, assigned to ride alone in a parade in an open carriage.
``Here, we got one left over!'' someone would say, and shove me aboard and whack the lead horse on the haunch and off we'd go with me, stark-eyed.
You know what Faberge did when the bottom fell out? He continued, deadpan, to walk the entire rest of the way on foot - within the framework of the carriage.
The only other artist I can think of who could have weathered that disaster, with dignity intact, was Charlie Chaplin.
I'd like to watch Laurel and Hardy try it, though. They would break up the parade.
A descendant of French Huguenots who had moved to Russia, Faberge, at age 24, took charge of his father's jewelry store in Leningrad and opened branches in Moscow, Odessa, Kiev and London.
The House of Faberge flourished until the Communist regime shut it down in 1918. Faberge escaped to Lausanne, Switzerland, where he died in 1920 at 74.
To make his work stand out, Faberge turned his craftsmen to creating fantasies encrusted with precious stones. Faberge's images brightened the drear Russian winters.
Russia's last two czars gave the Imperial Easter Eggs to members of the royal family. Each egg conceals a mechanical contrivance that works as a surprise.
The exhibition, ``Faberge in America,'' was organized by the Virginia Museum and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Highlights include the Peter the Great Egg from the Virginia Museum; the Cameo or Catherine the Great Egg from the Marjorie Merriweather Post Collection at the Hillwood Museum in Washington, D.C.; and the Coronation Coach Egg from the Forbes Magazine Collection in New York City.
The Virginia Museum's clutch was a bequest of Lillian Thomas Pratt of Fredericksburg, wife of John Lee Pratt, a General Motors executive. She collected Faberge works until her death in 1947. John Pratt left $55 million to nine Virginia colleges and universities at his death in 1975.
Along with 15 imperial eggs, the exhibition, opening Aug. 24, will present 300 other bejeweled Faberge creations. by CNB