Fabulous Fabergé

Decorative arts fans will want to add “Fabergé and the Russian Crafts Tradition: An Empire’s Legacy” to their libraries.

Fans of decorative arts – whether it’s you or someone on your holiday-shopping list – will want to take note of a dazzling new book.

“Fabergé and the Russian Crafts Tradition: An Empire’s Legacy” by Margaret Kelly Trombly with William R. Johnston, Karen Kettering, Robert Mintz and Diana Scarisbrick ($39.95, 208 pages) is released Nov. 14 by Thames & Hudson.

The book is filled with countless, stunning illustrations of how the decorative arts flourished in Russia over nine centuries thanks to the patronage of the tsars and their courts. With seemingly limitless resources, they were able to commission not only beautiful but technically sophisticated works.

The book follows the story of these crafts and their journey to the United States after the Russian Revolution and is published to coincide with the exhibition of the same name, which opened Nov. 12 at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

“From carefully faceted and ingeniously set gems to precisely chased silver and intricate gold work, artists created some of the most opulent objects that Russia and the world had ever seen,” write Mintz and Johnson in their introduction.

The book features works by Peter Carl Fabergé and his workshop, jeweled Byzantine icons, silver drinking vessels and intricate enamels, including two stunning Fabergé eggs that were once in the Russian Imperial collection.

Another gem? The “OTMA” portrait diamond necklace, circa 1914, which features the four daughters – Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia – of Tsar Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna depicted in watercolor miniatures encircled in diamonds.

They just don’t make them like they used to.

For more, visit thamesandhudsonusa.com.

– Mary Shustack

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