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A silver-gilt shaded and en-plein enamel casketFabergé, Feodor Ruckert, Moscow, 1908-1917
Sold for £7,200 inc. premium
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Find your local specialistA silver-gilt shaded and en-plein enamel casket
shaped rectangular, the body with stylized foliate and geometric wirework embellishment, flanked by two swing handles and hinged lock plate en-suite, the cover set with enamel plaque within beaded border depicting 'The Boyar Wedding Feast' after Konstantin Makovsky, 88 standard length: 11cm (4in).
Footnotes
The cover of the offered lot is fitted with a plaque drawn from 'The Boyar Wedding Feast' painted in 1883 by Konstantin Makovsky and currently hanging at The Hillwood Museum in Washington D.C.. Vignettes from this large painting were incorporated into various Russian Revival caskets supplied by Feodor Ruckert to Fabergé.
The virtuosity of these pictorial boxes lay in the combination of colour and technique such as shaded and en-plein enamelling. In the proposed lot, Ruckert's use of lustre glaze to enrich the stamen was borrowed from ceramic techniques. To then tie the enamelwork sections together visually, the colours of the shaded enamel cells were mixed with deliberate care to echo the robes of the boyars in the plaque.
Ruckert's mastery of wirework went beyond simply defining cloisons and became a decorative expression of its own, highlighting the stylized flowers in the foreground and creating a geometric backdrop. This was further enriched with characteristic spiral motifs borrowed from pre-Petrine woodcarving.