London Letter: Alongside diamonds the size of hen's eggs and pearl-encrusted crowns that once adorned the heads of Indian maharajahs, some of the finest works by the great Russian jeweller Peter Carl Faberge are crammed into display cases in the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace, writes Lynne O'Donnell.
The 300 exquisite objets d'art represent just half of Queen Elizabeth's Faberge collection, which has been kept in the family for more than 100 years as most pieces were exchanged as gifts between the inter-related members of the royal houses of Britain, Denmark and Russia.
The pieces are striking in their variety, intricacy and beauty, and chart the story not only of Faberge's rise to wealth and prominence through the patronage of Europe's imperial families, but also the idle and indulgent lives led by the people who ruled the western world before the momentous changes wrought by the First World War.
Faberge was born in 1846, the son of a Hugenot goldsmith who joined his father's firm at the age of 19 and within 20 years had transformed it into a multinational enterprise whose success was inextricably linked to the Romanovs, as he was appointed as Supplier to the Imperial Court by Tsar Alexander III.
Having secured the patronage of the Russian royals, Faberge established a Moscow workshop and revived an array of traditional techniques in enamelling, gold decoration and semi-precious stone carving that came to the attention of the Danish princesses Alexandra and Dagmar, who were to become consorts of Britain's King Edward VII and Tsar Alexander III respectively.
Indeed, Alexandra's obsession with Faberge's works led him to open a shop in London in 1903 which, while ostensibly open to the public, was more like a private showroom for the royal couple who commissioned an enormous number of pieces, including miniature statues of favourite dogs and horses, as well as sepia enamelled landscapes of their home at Sandringham.
Many of the picture frames are displayed with the photographs they have long held, including one of a young Prince Charles in a pearl and ruby studded diamond-shaped frame that graced the sideboard of the late Queen Mother.
Alexandra was besotted with Faberge's skill at recreating flowers and trees, and the Queen's collection contains the largest grouping of Faberge flowers, with pansies, daisies, carnations, wild roses, cornflowers and buttercups carved from nephrite, agate, quartz, jasper, tiger's eye and studded with brilliant diamonds and cabochon rubies and sapphires.
The array of animals is breathtaking, and includes ducks, goats, pigeons, rabbits, deer, a minute snail, a large raven, horses, hens, bulls and a door mouse chewing straw woven from gold filigree, most of which were commissioned by various members of the ruling houses for each other.
King Edward VII loved his Norfolk terrior, Caesar, so much he had him carved in translucent pink chalcedony stone with ruby eyes and a gold collar that reads: "I belong to the King." One of the most notable attributes of the pieces is how small most of them are, though curator Caroline de Guitaut said that many, such as letter openers, seals, bell pushes, cigarette holders, boxes for cigarette and matches, and tiny, intricately-carved and jewel-encrusted cups, were put to daily use.
"They are a mixture of practical and pretty," she said. "They used all these things, they were made to be used." Among the collection are four of the famed Faberge eggs collected by King George V and his consort Queen Mary. They include three Imperial eggs which Ms de Guitaut said it was impossible to put a monetary value on though the last one to sell at public auction fetched around Pounds7 million.
Only 50 Imperial eggs were made by Faberge in a short annual tradition that began in 1885 when Tsar Alexander III had Faberge begin his career at court with an Easter gift for his consort, Tsarina Marie Feodorovna, the former Princess Dagmar. The design of the eggs was usually based on an important event of that year and most contained a "surprise" such as the engraved pedestal within the 1914 Mosaic Egg that shows the five profiles of Tsar Nicholas II's five children, the last in the Russian imperial line.
The collection will be on display until March, when the pieces, held in trust by the Queen for the British public, will be returned to the variety of royal households where they are kept.