Fabergé-Style Hardstone Orange Blossom in Rock Crystal Vase

18197: Fabergé-Style Hardstone Orange Blossom in Rock Crystal Vase
Style of Fabergé (Russian, founded 1842)
Height: 13cm, width: 6cm, depth: 5cm
This hardstone study, made in the manner of Fabergé, models a flowering orange blossom branch rising from a rock crystal vase. It follows the type of objet de fantaisie for which Fabergé's workshops became known: naturalistically carved flowers in semi-precious stones set in a vase of rock crystal, the stone hollowed and polished to simulate water. The stems are struck with a 750 mark for 18 carat gold.
The branch bears open blossoms carved from white chalcedony, each with rounded petals gathered around a chased gold centre set with a small rose-cut diamond. Nephrite buds are worked as green spheres along the branches, while the foliage is carved from nephrite in tones of deep and pale green, the leaves veined and gently curled to naturalistic effect and mottled here and there with darker inclusions.
The flowers and foliage are carried on 18 carat gold stems, gathered into a rock crystal vase of compressed globular form, the clear stone worked to give the impression of stems standing in water.
The study belongs to the twentieth-century revival of Fabergé's flower studies, in which Continental workshops reproduced the firm's practice of carving blossoms and foliage from coloured hardstones and setting them in rock crystal. The carving of the petals and the gold-mounted centres follows that established model.
$27,000