Fabergé box with a painted enamel plaque by miniaturist Alexander Borozdin (1880-1942), Moscow, 1908-1917 

Silver, enamel, gilding

1 3/4 x 4 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. (4.5 x 11.5 x 8.8 cm)

Inv. no. ab_0026

Exhibited: 

Moscow, Gosudarstvennyi istoriko-kulʹturnyi muzei-zapovednik "Moskovskii Kremlʹ", “Karl Faberzhe i Fedor Riukert. Shedevry russkoi emali,” 9 October 2020 – 14 February 2021, no. 305.

Publications:

Muntyan, T.N. Karl Faberzhe i Fedor Riukert. Shedevry russkoi emali. Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi istoriko-kulʹturnyi muzei-zapovednik "Moskovskii Kremlʹ", 2020. Cat. no. 305, p. 249.

For the source image, see A.S. Pushkin, V.M. Vasnetsov, and V.D. Zamirailo. Pesnʹ o veshchem Olege. St. Petersburg: Ekspeditsiia zagotovleniia gosudarstvennykh bumag, 1899.

Painter and fresco artist Alexander Borozdin, one of a small group of Fabergé’s collaborators, painted the enamel plaque set in the lid of this box with a copy after Viktor Vasnetsov’s (1848-1926) Oleg’s Meeting with the Magician, part of a cycle of works he created to illustrate an 1899 edition of Alexander Pushkin’s (1799-1837) The Song of the Wise Oleg (1822).

Many Fabergé boxes are set with unsigned enamel plaques painted with copies after contemporary Russian paintings. While these subjects are often repeated, this use of Vasnetsov’s design is unique. One other plaque painted with another work from the cycle, The Prophecy of Oleg, and also signed by Borozdin is reproduced in G. von Habsburg and M. Lopato, Fabergé: Imperial Jeweler. New York, 1993, no. 215, p. 333.