藝術導賞

We would like to show you the last two imperial Russian couples. So on the top you will see Tsar Alexandar III and his wife Feodorovna who was a Danish princess. The bottom photo shows Tsar Nicholas II who was the son of Alexandar III and their only son, the heir to the throne, Alexei.

Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna only have daughters and they waited for a long time, for ten years to have a son.

Unfortunately he has a very rare genetic disease. Alexandra Fyodorovna was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, the Queen of England, and she inherited a genetic condition that many royal families had, it was only transmitted by woman but it only showed itself in male. Nevertheless, the royal family was very happy about having a baby boy on their tenth wedding anniversary.

Faberge was commissioned to create this “Pansies” as a gift by Nicholas II to his wife. It is a flower made of gold covered by color enamel and the vase was made of rock crystal to resemble real water, but in fact it is an optical illusion, there’s no water in it.

On one side, there’s the Roman letter X to mark their tenth anniversary and on the other side, names of the five royal children were inscribed there.  This is the only flower made by the House of Faberge that has a mechanical part to it.  When it is closed, it looks like a pansy flower and when you press the button between the leaves, it opens and you can see the portraits of the 5 children of the royal couple, decorated by tiny diamonds around.