The giving of miniatures had long been a common practice among wealthy and aristocratic families by the time Faberge began combining portraits with his richly decorated frames. The Russian imperial family delighted in having these personal mementos and commissioned many different miniatures to place around their private apartments, providing a warm family atmosphere in an otherwise highly formal existence.

Inscriptions

Inscription

miniature inscribed: Zehngraf.

Inscription

Marks underneath base: 56, crossed anchors [assay mark for St. Petersburg, 1882-96]; hallmark for workmaster Mikhail Perkhin (in Cyrillic); FABERGE (in Cyrillic); scratched 54471.

Provenance

1896-1918

Tsar Nicholas II [1868-1918] and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna [1872-1918], purchased from the maker, December 18, 1896 (by tsar), Alexander Palace, Tsarskoye Selo, Russia ¹

1918-1922

Provisional Russian Government, Kremlin, Moscow

?-1948

(The Schaffer Collection of Russian Imperial Art Treasures [A La Vielle Russie], New York, NY)

1966-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Provenance Footnotes

¹Imperial provenance discovered in Russian state ledgers by Kieran McCarthy, Wartski, London, 2019.

Citations

Hawley, Henry H. Fabergé and His Contemporaries: The India Early Minshall Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1967. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 24-5, cat. 8 ingallslibrary.on.worldcat.org

Habsburg, Géza von, and David Park Curry. Fabergé in America. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 107, cat. 83 ingallslibrary.on.worldcat.org

Exhibition history

Charity Exhibition of Fabergé Artistic Objects, Old Miniatures, and Snuff Boxes (Выставка художественных произведений К. Фаберже в особняке П.П. фон Дервиза, Санкт-Петербург). Baron von Dervis Mansion, Saint Petersburg, Russia (March 1902).

Year in Review: 1967. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 29-December 31, 1967).

Fabergé in America. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (February 12-May 5, 1996); Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (organizer) (May 25-July 28, 1996); Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (August 24-November 2, 1996); New Orleans Museum of Art (December 7, 1996-February 8, 1997); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 12-May 11, 1997).

Fabergé Loan. Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, Nashville, TN (organizer) (September 15, 2008-June 30, 2009).

Fabergé: Romance to Revolution. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (organizer) (November 20, 2021-May 8, 2022) https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/faberge.