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Lot 187

A large jewelled and gold-mounted stone model of an elephant
Fabergé, workmaster Henrik Wigström, St. Petersburg, 1908-1917

7 June 2010, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

£150,000 - £180,000

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A large jewelled and gold-mounted stone model of an elephant

Fabergé, workmaster Henrik Wigström, St. Petersburg, 1908-1917
the standing elephant realistically modelled in Siberian jade, its trunk and tail curled to the side, with rose-cut diamond gold-set eyes and a cachalong gold-fringed blanket upon its back, scratched inventory number '20740', 56 standard
height: 13cm (5in).

Footnotes

This unusually large nephrite elephant relates to a favourite theme in Fabergé hardstone carvings although only very few with fringed saddle cloths survive. These often evoke the close relations between the Royal houses of Britain, Denmark and Russia which resulted in commissions for elephants fitted with and without the howdah of the Danish Order of the Elephant.

Archival research suggests the proposed lot is a larger scale example from a group of hardstone elephants produced for the Asian market. The inventory number dates the elephant to 1911-1912 and was recorded in the list of objects confiscated from Fabergé's Kuznetski Most branch in March 1919 against a value of 550 roubles.

For a similar large format model but without saddle-cloth see Christie's New York, 18 April 2008, lot 303.

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