Viktor Vekselberg
Chris Harvey
Thu, March 3, 2022
The Alexander Palace Egg, by Fabergé (1908) - V&A
They’re the royal treasures of the former Russian empire, the magnificent imperial Easter eggs made for the Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II by the St Petersburg jeweller Carl Fabergé. Only 50 were ever delivered, seven have been lost; of the 43 dazzlingly intricate creations still in existence, 15 of the most beautiful make up the climax of the V&A’s sold-out exhibition Fabergé: Romance to Revolution, which is scheduled to run until May 8.
The V&A say that of the 233 objects included in the entire show, 13 have been loaned from Russian institutions, and that to date there have been no requests to return the loans, which they expect to stay on display until the exhibition closes, “at which point we will work closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the lenders to ensure [their] safe return.”
Yet the imperial eggs seem certain to become objects of fraught concern in a new and frightening Cold War that is extending even to the arts. It has already thrown into jeopardy the careers of such stars as Anna Netrebko, probably the most famous operatic soprano in the world, and Valery Gergiev, the great conductor. Russia has been disinvited from Eurovision. Meanwhile the eggs, these extraordinary symbols of Russian wealth and might, continue to draw crowds of visitors daily.
The CEO of Fabergé, Sean Gilbertson, describes them as “some of the most important culturally historic pieces of art ever made… The value that’s on display in those 15 imperial eggs is simply staggering. The Queen owns one called the Mosaic egg. If that was put up for auction today it would probably exceed $100 million.” Before the war in Ukraine, he says, “in our view, you’ve got half a billion dollars of eggs there.”
Among them is the Moscow Kremlin egg, a gift from Tsar Nicholas II to his wife, which consists of ornate towers of gold, silver and onyx around a white enamel cupola. It was crafted between 1904-6 and has been loaned by the Kremlin Armoury Museum. The museum has loaned two other imperial eggs: the Alexander Palace egg and the Romanov Tercentenary egg. Also present is the very first imperial Easter egg, the Hen egg, made in 1884-5 for Nicholas’s father, Alexander III, as a present for the Empress Maria Feodorovna.
The Moscow Kremlin Egg - Moscow Kremlin Museums/PA
It contains a small, golden bird, which fits in a golden yolk, inside a white enamel egg. This has been loaned by a foundation set up by the Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who has had his assets frozen in the US since 2018 along with 23 other Russian nationals, in relation to Moscow’s perceived meddling in the 2016 American election and other alleged “malign activity”. His main relationship with Putin appears to be a business one connected to Russian infrastructure projects.
Vekselberg bought the Hen egg in 2004, as part of the collection of Fabergé works once owned by the late American media magnate Malcolm Forbes. He owns nine Fabergé imperial eggs, which are normally on display in the Fabergé Museum in the Shuvalov Palace in St Petersburg. The V&A say they “have received no direct support from Viktor Vekselberg either through funding or the donation of objects”. The museum explains, “Our loan agreement is with the Link of Times Foundation and was made in good faith between two cultural organisations”.
Yet Fabergé’s own publicity on their website refers to it as: “the celebrated Fabergé collection of the Link of Times Foundation owned by Russian entrepreneur Viktor Vekselberg”. The oligarch spent £30 million on renovating the neoclassical palace in which they’re housed and is reported as saying, “Any true collector makes a collection to put it on public display sooner or later and, ideally, create its own museum.” One source suggests that the purchase of the collection has been talked about as a bargaining chip that could be used to keep Vekselberg in favour with the Russian president, rather like a “get out of jail free” card.
In the past, the Ukrainian-born Vekselberg, who is based in Switzerland and has a fortune estimated to be around £12 billion, has donated freely to arts institutions, including the Tate, where he remains an Honorary Tate Foundation Member. This, Tate informed us, is in recognition of a donation made seven years ago.
Vekselberg considered returning the eggs to Russia as an act of “repatriation”. Yet as Toby Faber, the author of the book Fabergé’s Eggs, points out, for most of the 20th century, their exquisite craftsmanship was disregarded at home. “If you think back to the Soviet era, Carl Fabergé was absolutely a symbol of a discredited time, and they were not proud of his work. Pretty much all of his standard jewellery was melted down in the early Seventies, just for the precious stones it contained... the eggs themselves endured a series of raids by Stalin who wanted to sell them off to fund his five-year plan. The Kremlin was left at the end of that process with 10, and all the rest were scattered overseas.”
It was not until the late 1980s that accurate details about the provenance of the eggs emerged, he explains. "Perestroika and the opening of the Kremlin archives was the first time when people were getting real clarity about which egg was made for whom, and in what year; it had all been guesswork up to then, and a bit of hearsay.”
The Bolshoi Ballet performed at The Royal Opera House - Nigel Norrington
There is also the issue of another egg loaned to the exhibition, not an imperial one, but an item nevertheless of huge value. This is the Rothschild egg, bought by Alexander Ivanov, a Russian art dealer, in 2007 for £8.9 million, for his Fabergé Museum in Germany but latterly seemingly given to Putin, who would donate it in 2014 with much fanfare to the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg – which has now loaned it to the V&A.
Will the closeness of this egg’s connection to the man currently being accused of war crimes entail future problems?
We approached the V&A’s director Tristram Hunt for comment but were told he was not available. The chief executive of the Hermitage Foundation UK, Janice Sacher, was also unable to comment, and even declined to name any works on loan to the UK for fear that they might be targeted. The DCMS provided an almost identical statement to the V&A. There is clearly anxiety.
Meanwhile, the sense of the UK being drawn into a new culture war in the wake of the Russian invasion continues to expand. A planned season of the Bolshoi Ballet has been cancelled by the Royal Opera House, the Science Museum has called off an upcoming exhibition about the Trans-Siberian Railway (and even its director has handed back a Russian medal). The Royal Academy of Arts has severed ties with one of its trustees, the billionaire Russian banker Petr Aven, handing back a donation that he made to a Francis Bacon exhibition.
Semyon Bychkov conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at Carnegie Hall - Getty
One gallerist specialising in Russian artists told me she had been contacted by several collectors asking to be removed immediately from her mailing list. Meanwhile, a reader’s letter in the Telegraph complained about Classic FM continuing to play Russian music.
Navigating this new, bomb-scarred cultural landscape will be difficult for performers and institutions alike. Russian virtuoso musicians regularly play in Britain, principal dancers are integral parts of companies like the Royal Ballet, with Natalia Osipova and Vadim Muntagirov both performing in a current production of Swan Lake. “This will be a traumatic time for our Ukrainian and Russian staff and artists, particularly those with family and friends affected,” a spokesperson for the Royal Opera House told me. “Support has been offered to everyone who works with us, and our respect and solidarity is with Ukraine as it resists the invasion of its territory.”
The Barbican, which has not made any changes to its planned programme, says it is looking at it on a “case by case basis”. A spokesperson explained: “The Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov who conducts the Czech Philharmonic in March has made a public statement denouncing the invasion and the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s programme entitled Shostakovich in the Shadow of Stalin feels like an appropriate programme given the context behind Symphony No 5.” It seems that the words of Mikhail Piotrovsky, the director of the Hermitage Museum, that “culture is always above politics” have been overtaken by events.
Additional reporting by Alex Diggins
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