Fake or Fabergé?
Could an enamel lily stored in a shoebox in Liverpool be a precious Fabergé jewel once owned by royalty?
BBC
- Amy Raphael
Add Fake or Fortune to your watchlist
Ad
In 2018, when Antiques Roadshow’s jewellery expert Geoffrey Munn valued a pear blossom Fabergé flower at an estimated £1 million, the crowd that was gathered around him gasped. Even Munn, who specialises in the work of the great Russian goldsmith and jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé, seemed a little flustered.
This week, in the opening episode of a new series of BBC One’s long-running detective art show Fake or Fortune?, Liverpool sales assistant Rachael presents Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould with an enamel lily that she believes was created by the House of Fabergé, and the presenters’ reaction is much like Munn’s all those years ago: “Wow!”
Rachael stored the enamel lily in a shoebox. BBC
Renowned for its elaborately designed Easter eggs, the House of Fabergé is a big deal in the art world. The jewellery firm’s delicate enamel flowers, exchanged among members of the Russian imperial family as tokens of affection, are less well-known but are highly prized. If Rachael’s lily – stored in a shoebox out of the way of her “naughty” cat – turns out to be the real deal, it could be worth more than £250,000.
Rachael, recently widowed with two grown-up children, inherited the delicate flower from her beloved step-grandmother Mary upon her death in 2021. Mary in turn had inherited it from her friend, Helen, Queen Mother of Romania, a collector of all things Fabergé.
We'd never take on anything we thought was a fake
Philip Mould
To prove an artwork’s provenance and determine if an object is genuine, Bruce and art dealer Mould rely on specialists as well as their own sleuthing skills. “We would never take on anything we thought was a fake,” says Mould. “We hope the owner will find their fortune. The last thing we’d want to do is take them on a wild goose chase.”
Rachael’s flower, identified as a Martagon lily, has a deep red enamel bloom and vivid green leaves perched on top of a slender gold stem and is set in what appears to be a rock-crystal vase. In 2014, Bonhams valued it at between £200,000 and £300,000. After Mary’s death, however, the auction house concluded it was “Fabergé style” rather than the real thing and revalued it at £4,000, giving no reason for the dramatic change.
Mould says the biggest challenge this episode was “not being able to study, in a forensic way, other examples of Fabergé flowers, because only 70 or 80 have survived across the world. We obviously couldn’t travel to Russia, and we weren’t able to access the Fabergé flowers in the Royal Collection.”
When Bruce meets Rachael at Liverpool Central Library, she is surprised to discover that she has a suitcase full of documentation. Among the papers is a photograph of Mary and her husband Austin with Helen, Queen Mother of Romania, taken while the House of Fabergé was still in operation. The firm closed following the Russian Revolution in 1917, when the Fabergé family fled the country.
The Fabergé pear blossom that made Antiques Roadshow history. © MOD / Crown Copyright, 2018
There’s also Helen’s will, in which she identifies the lily as a Fabergé piece when bequeathing it to Mary. Then Rachael casually reaches into the suitcase and produces a message the Queen sent to Mary after Austin, a solicitor who counted several members of the royal family among his friends, died in 1987: “I was so very sorry to hear of your husband’s death. I will greatly miss his loyalty and wise counsel. I send my heartfelt sympathy to you and your family in your grievous loss.”
Bruce was surprised to discover so much paperwork. “Rachael is such a lovely, unassuming person. When Philip and I first met her, it looked like documentation was going to be thin on the ground. It was probably unusual for the Queen to have had a personal relationship with someone like Austin. He was not very grand, but he happened to have grand connections.”
As the flower is discussed by Fabergé experts, carefully examined by an enameller and given a state-of-the-art x-ray, Mould and Munn travel to the Worcester Commandery to see the £1 million Fabergé pear blossom that featured on Antiques Roadshow. It arrives in a padlocked box, accompanied by a small military escort, and Munn points out the lack of a maker’s mark, which pleases Mould as Rachael’s flower has no mark either.
Ad
Whatever the verdict, perhaps Rachael’s lily ultimately has value as a symbol of love? “I think so, yes,” says Bruce. “Helen, Queen Mother of Romania had a terribly sad life and her gifts to Mary were no small tokens of affection. Mary then chose to give Rachael the lily, hoping it would help her financially. All the way down the line, this flower was an act of love.”
Authors
Amy Raphael
Ad
Ad
Subscribe for £1 per week
Too much to watch this autumn? Let Radio Times magazine and app do the choosing, with expert picks across TV, streaming and film.
Ad