How to Plan an International Trip: Travel Tales and Tips : The Big Apple, New York City: Day 2 Part 4 Met: Fabergé, Porcelain, Tiffany glass

Snuffbox with portrait of Catherine II (1729–1796), Empress of Russia 1774–75, miniature ca. 1786; French:

In eighteenth-century Europe, Paris led the production of high-quality luxury goods. Parisian goldsmiths made a wide range of small, personal articles such as snuffboxes; étuis to hold sealing wax, tweezers, or aids for sewing; souvenirs, thin ivory tablets for note taking; and shuttles for knotting lace.

Gold snuffboxes and boxes decorated with portrait miniatures were prized and frequently given as royal gifts, often to ambassadors or members of the court in lieu of cash payments for their services.

Coveted and admired, these boxes were produced from a variety of materials. The best were skillfully made of gold and embellished with diamonds, enameled decoration, lacquer, and other luxurious materials.

By the middle of the century, the taking of snuff had become an entrenched social ritual, and the snuffbox, too, had become an important social prop. Snuffboxes were considered highly fashionable accessories, with some merchants advertising new boxes with each change of season. The popularity of snuffboxes extended to all levels of society, and for those who could not afford gold, boxes were produced in less expensive materials such as silver, tortoiseshell, porcelain, or domestically produced lacquer.

Fabergé:

Amazing video of some of the Fabergé eggs here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUQW9TztA_A

Peter Carl Fabergé (1846–1920) was a visionary and talented artisan and jeweler. In 1872 he took over his father's small jewelry atelier in Saint Petersburg. In forty years Fabergé became the world's largest enterprise of its kind, employing some 500 craftsmen and designers.

Opera accessories below...opera glass bottom right, clock.

Fabergé picture frames, cigarette cases...

Fabergé picture frames...

Gem studded Fabergé cigarette cases...

Lilies-of-the-Valley Basket, Fabergé's floral masterpiece:

Made in 1896, it was originally presented to Russian Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna and consists of 19 individual stems emerging from nine separate plants in a "moss" of spun, fused, clipped, and polished green and yellow gold.

Each pearl blossom is edged in silver set with rose-cut diamonds, with realistic leaves made of hard, dense nephrite and carved with the striations characteristic of the lily-of-the-valley plant.

The Czarina adored the Lilies-of- the-Valley Basket, as the blossoms were among her favorite flowers, and pearls her favorite jewels. She kept it on view in the private apartments and often took it with her when traveling.

Some more floral objects...

These are Fabergé Imperial Easter eggs...The creation of each Imperial Easter Egg required the work of many people—designers, gem cutters and setters, engravers, enamelers, polishers—and each could take more than a year to complete.

Tsar of Russia, Alexander III presented the red Caucasus Egg (1883) and pink Danish palaces egg to his Queen (1890).

The Caucasus Egg:

The Caucasus Egg is made of yellow and varicolored gold, silver, ruby enamel, rose-cut diamonds, portrait diamonds, platinum, ivory, pearls, rock crystal and watercolor on ivory.

It commemorates the Imperial hunting lodge in Abastumani in Caucasus where Grand Duke George (their third son) spent most of his life after being diagnosed with tuberculosis.

The miniatures are revealed by opening four pearl-bordered doors around the egg.

Each door bears a diamond-set numeral of the year, forming the year 1893. Behind the hinged cover at the top is a portrait of George in his naval uniform. George died on 9 August 1899, at the age of 28.

Nicholas II, the elder son who became king always remembered George. Years later, he would be heard laughing looking thru his old box with paper pieces with George's jokes.

Danish Palaces Egg:

This is Danish Palaces Egg

The exterior is pink-mauve enameled gold split into twelve sections. 102 mm (4 in.) tall by 67 mm (2 5/8 in.) wide. 6 vertical lines of rose-cut diamonds and 3 horizontal lines separate the enameled panels. emerald at each intersection of lines separating panels, egg is crowned with a medallion of radiating leaves around a cabochon star sapphire. The opposite end of the egg is chased with additional acanthus leaves.

Egg opens to reveal a 10-panel screen made of gold with watercolors on mother of pearl.

The panels are framed with a design of tangent circles with a multi-color gold wreath at the apex and stand on Greek meander feet.

The watercolors depict the Queen's favorite holiday spots, left to right, Imperial yacht Polar Star; Bernstorff Palace, Copenhagen; the Emperor's villa in Fredensborg park, near Fredensborg Castle; Amalienborg Palace, Copenhagen; Kronborg Castle, Helsingør; the Cottage Palace, Peterhof; Gatchina Palace near St. Petersburg and Imperial yacht Tsarevna in the panels.

The Imperial Napoleonic egg:

The Imperial Napoleonic egg, is a Fabergé egg, one of a series of 52 jewelled eggs made under the supervision of Peter Carl Fabergé.

The egg's design commemorates the centenary of the Battle of Borodino during Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia. It was created in 1912 for the last Tsar of Russia Nicholas II as a gift to his mother the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna. The egg is crafted out of yellow gold, with emerald panels, rubies and diamonds on its exterior. The interior of the egg is lined with satin and velvet.

The egg still has its "surprise", a six-panel miniature screen depicting in watercolor six regiments of which Maria Fyodorovna was an honorary colonel.

Each panel has on its reverse side the royal monogram of the Dowager Empress. The screen itself is made from translucent green emeralds, rose-cut diamonds and white enamel. The hinges of the screen are ax-topped faces.

Watch cases, miniature clocks, music boxes:

These are watch cases

Miniature clock,first half 18th century, German, Dresden

Medium:Gold, agate, and heliotrope, set with rose diamonds

Miniature secretary incorporating a watch ca. 1766–72 James Cox:

Bejeweled butterflies and flowers that tremble in the slightest breath of air adorn this whimsical object, which plays tunes on a hidden music box and incidentally tells the time.

The spring mechanism that powers the music is wound by inserting a key into a hole hidden behind one of rosettes near the bulls that support the cabinet.

Based on actual rococo European cabinet designs, but with some improbable additions, the miniature was in the collection of Princess Z. M. Youssoupof in Saint Petersburg in 1904.

European porcelain...

Ivory Mirror Case with a Falconing Party 1330–60; French:

Such mirror cases were made by ivory carvers called pigniers, who specialized in them as well as combs. Among the most popular products of Gothic ivory carvers, mirrors were made in pairs so that they could be stored facing each other, to protect the polished metal surfaces, and they were often sold in leather cases. The courtly subject matter, elegant carving, and use of a luxury material such as ivory indicate that they were intended for aristocratic clients; medieval inventories confirm that these objects frequently belonged to such households.

Marble statues:

Sshhh .. the kid is asleep...

Babies Apollo and Diana sleeping on their mother's lap.

Two little girls fast asleep---with their shoes on...

Father Nile surrounded by 16 children and holding a cornucopia...a symbol of plenty consisting of a goat's horn overflowing with flowers, fruit, Egyptian sphinx nearby

Louis Comfort Tiffany Stained glass:

Louis Comfort Tiffany ( 1848 – 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass.

stained glass is glass that has been colored by adding metallic salts during its manufacture, and usually then further decorating it in various ways. The colored glass is crafted into stained glass windows in which small pieces of glass are arranged to form patterns or pictures, held together (traditionally) by strips of lead and supported by a rigid frame

These exquisite windows are made of iridescent glass and transparent tesserae backed with metal leaf...

Autumn Landscape 1923–24, Tiffany Studios

this window, executed late in Tiffany’s career, portrays the late afternoon sun filtered through rich autumnal foliage.

No paint was used to add detail; the modeling, texture, and form were created solely with glass, using the full range developed at Tiffany Studios. The variegated surface was made by wrinkling glass in its molten state.

Different color effects were achieved by embedding tiny, confetti-like flakes of glass in the surface.

Plating—the superimposition of several layers of glass on the back of the window—added depth.

Although commissioned in 1923 by Loren D. Towle for the stair landing of his enormous neo- Gothic mansion in Boston, the window was never installed. In 1925, Robert W. de Forest, Tiffany’s close friend, donated the window to the Museum, where he was president and founder of the American Wing.