Lot 135Fabergé Gold-Mounted Aventurine Quartz Model of a Duckling
Workmaster Henrik Wigström, St. Petersburg, 1899-1907
Realistically carved, with a white quartz beak, olivine eyes and rose gold feet. Height 2 3/4 inches (6.9 cm).

Provenance:
Christie's, Geneva, May 11, 1982, lot 256 (part)
Christie's, New York, April 20, 2001, lot 63
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Exhibited:
Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Fabergé Hofjuwelier der Zaren, December 5, 1986 - February 22, 1987, No. 296.
Literature:
Géza von Habsburg, Fabergé Hofjuwelier der Zaren, Munich, 1986, p. 193.

The present lot is nearly identical to a Fabergé model of a duckling in the Royal Collection (RCIN 40397; C. de Guitaut, Fabergé in the Royal Collection, London, 2003, p. 67). In 1907, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra famously commissioned Fabergé to create carvings of the animals on their country estate at Sandringham in Norfolk, resulting in the most important and comprehensive collection of Fabergé hardstone animals which remains in The Royal Collection to this day. Carved from aventurine quartz with gold legs, the duckling from the Sandringham Commission was made in the workshop of Henrik Wigström in the same period as the present lot.
The Royal Collection has a total of four models of ducks in aventurine quartz made in Wigström's workshop (RCIN 40326, RCIN 40397, RCIN 40419, RCIN 40468). For another comparable model of a duckling held in the Woolf Family Collection, see Wartski, Carl Fabergé, A Private Collection (London 2012), No. 72, p. 88, and G. Habsburg, Fabergé: Imperial Craftsman and His World (London, 2000), No. 857, p. 312.

Members of the Russian Imperial family purchased several hardstone models of ducks from Fabergé. In March 1899, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna purchased a duck carved from rose chalcedony (R.R. Gafifullin, Works of the Fabergé Firm, Late XIX -- Early XX Century in the Collection of the State Pavlovsk Museum, St. Petersburg, 2013, No. 2788, p. 167). In July 1906, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna purchased a hardstone duck of unidentified material (R.R. Gafifullin, op cit, No. 5091, p. 275).


C Property from a Virginia Private Collection

Unsold
Estimate $15,000-25,000

Assay date 1899-1903


Any condition statement is given as a courtesy to a client, is only an opinion and should not be treated as a statement of fact. Doyle New York shall have no responsibility for any error or omission. The absence of a condition statement does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition or completely free from wear and tear, imperfections or the effects of aging.