Russia’s leading museum ‘insulting the good name of Fabergé’ by displaying alleged fakes eggs

Art dealer claims the so-called 'Tenth Wedding Anniversary Egg', purportedly given by Nicholas II to Empress Alexandra on their tenth wedding anniversary in 1904, is a fake, as Carl Faberge produced no eggs that year due to the war between Russia and Japan

Credit: News Scans

A London art dealer has accused Russia’s leading museum of “insulting the good name of Fabergé” by displaying alleged fakes of the jewellers’ famous Easter eggs.

Andre Ruzhnikov accused Mikhail Piotrovsky, the director of the Hermitage, of “a blasphemous outrage against Russia culture” and “destroying the reputation” of the St Petersburg museum.

The controversy centres on an exhibition that opened in November featuring items loaned from the Fabergé museum in Baden-Baden, Germany, a private institution owned by the billionaire by Alexander Ivanov.

The Fabergé family’s jewellery house in St Petersburg provided sumptuous items to the Russian imperial family until the business was nationalised by the Bolsheviks in 1918. The brand’s most famous creations include 52 jewelled Easter eggs commissioned by  Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II as gifts for their families between 1885 and 1917.  

However, Mr Ruzhnikov said in an open letter on his website that many of the exhibits are “more suitable for a gift shop than Russia’s top museum”.

They include a Hen Easter Egg, which Mr Ruzhnikov claims is a recent copy of the original that is already on display in another museum in St Petersburg, and a red enamel egg named for the medieval hero Alexander Nevsky.

He also said the ‘Tenth Wedding Anniversary Egg’, purportedly given by Nicholas II to Empress Alexandra on their tenth wedding anniversary in 1904, must be a fake because Fabergé produced no eggs that year due to the war between Russia and Japan.  

Mr Ivanov has produced documents he claims proves that the exhibits are genuine, and told Artnet News, an antiques news site, that the exhibition was personally curated by Marina Lopato, a widely respected Fabergé specialist from the Hermitage who died last year, and to whom the show is dedicated.

Mr Piotrovsky declined to comment directly on the allegations when Russian journalists asked about the claims last month, directing them instead to a note in the preface to the show’s catalogue.

"The authenticity of each fresh item that appears on the market can always be challenged and disputed …documentation and receipts are only partially helpful … the consensus of the expert community is not easy to obtain and is often lacking,” the letter says. 

Fabergé – Jeweller to the Imperial Court, opened at the St Petersburg Hermitage on November 24 and runs until March 14 this year.