ST. PETERSBURG JEWELLERS

Yelena Ostozhyeva

The "St. Petersburg Jewellers" exhibition, featuring about 150 examples of the art, opened at the State Hermitage on 26 October 2000. It includes not only jewellery made for the Imperial Court and aristocratic families from the 18th to the early 20th centuries, but also the work of the most brilliant representatives of the contemporary St. Petersburg jewellery school.

The Hermitage owns one of the world's largest collections of jewellery. Its basis was the palace collection, made up of the best pieces inartistic terms - various kinds of adornments and expensive trifles, snuff-boxes and watches, caskets and vases. They were made by Russian craftsmen, who came to St. Petersburg from Moscow and a number of other Russian cities where the traditions of manufacturing gold and silver jewellery had been developed, and also by numerous European jewellers.

The Russian Court's predilection for European tastes and its attracting of a great number of foreign craftsmen with this in mind were the initial steps towards the formation of the art of jewellery in St. Petersburg in the 18th century. One of the greatest exponents of the time was Jeremiah Posier; a brilliant example of his art is provided by two magnificent bouquets made of precious stones (varying in colour and facets). All the stones are set in silver, while the flowers in the bouquets are mounted in gold. To add a touch of realism, the master often decorated a bouquet with a butterfly, a dragonfly or a beetle. Such pieces were usually worn at the waist or on the shoulder, or were sometimes fastened to the bodice of a dress. The work of such famous jewellers as Jean-Pierre Adore and Johann Gottlieb Scharf is mainly represented by snuff-boxes, regular in shape and decoration. Another interesting piece by Adore is an unusual golden vase, decorated with enameled grisaille medallions. The chased handles of the vase open to reveal special sockets for candles (so it can also be used as a candlestick).

The Duvall brothers' work dates from the end of the century; an outstanding example is a sprig of lilies in diamonds and pearls, made as a wedding present for Grand Princess Alexandra Pavlovna and Grand Duke Jozef of Austria.

The leading representatives of the St. Petersburg jewellery school in the 19th century were G. Pomo and P. Tenner, craftsmen from the Keibel and Barbe families and, of course, the world-famous Faberge company. At the beginning of that century the art of jewellery was continuing to develop the traditions of neoclassicism that had been characteristic of the previous century. Subsequently a new artistic trend can be perceived in gold and silver pieces, related to the craze for the culture of the past - historical method. The 1830s saw the introduction of a great many objects of applied art in the shape of Gothic arches with elements of medieval decoration; a typical example is a snuff-box depicting the Golitsyn estate in the Crimea. In the first thirty years of the 19th century snuff-boxes were mainly decorated with painted enamel. The wane of the fashion for taking snuff led to these gold boxes being used for other functions: they began to be used as musical boxes, dressing-table caskets or simply as souvenirs. Gold salt-cellars made by the leading craftsmen of the day were presented to the Emperor, as a rule, by nobles or merchants to mark some memorable occasion.

In the 19th century, alongside adornments made from gold and precious stones, other pieces appeared where the gold was alloyed or replaced by gilded silver, while precious stones were placed next to semi-precious. The decorative shapes became more varied, the jewellery became less expensive, making a great deal of it accessible to the middle class. Jewellery companies started springing up in St. Petersburg. The final period of the heyday of the art, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, was linked with Carl Faberge's company. Continuing the business of his father, who set up his first workshop in St. Petersburg in 1842, Carl went on to make the company world-famous, opening branches in Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and London. In 1900 models of the Imperial regalia made by Faberge craftsmen were awarded the Grand Prix at the World Exhibition in Paris.

The special feature of the "St. Petersburg Jewellers" exhibition is that, alongside the magnificent creations of old masters, it also includes the work of the city's contemporary jewellers. Those selected for display are: Vladimir Alyushin, Mikhail Breskin, Natalya and Gennady Bykov, Leonid Zvyagin, Natalya Kalganova, Darya Klimina, Igor Malkiel, Dmitry Pasynkov, Vera Chernova, Vladimir Shestakov and Andrey Ananov. Almost all of them are members of the Artists' Union of Russia, participants in various exhibitions in Russia and abroad and winners of many competitions, even one as prestigious as that organised by DeBeers.

Some of them have received government commissions. They work with major European companies. They all represent different trends in the modern art of jewellery. Some are inclined to adhere to tradition, using classical forms in modern interpretations, while others boldly experiment with avant-garde techniques.