Restoration of the Album of Sketches of Jewelry by

K. Faberge

In 2015 in the General Staff Building opened a new permanent exhibition of the Carl Fabergé Memorial Rooms.

The rooms present the legacy of one of Russia’s foremost jewellery firms, founded by the famous Carl Fabergé, and show the subsequent development of the art of jewellers and stone-cutters, the achievements of contemporary specialists.

Carl Fabergé’s firm is one of the most famous in the history of jewellery-making and silversmithing in this country. Its craftsmen produced outstanding pieces of decorative and applied art, working to commissions from the Russian imperial house and European monarchs, as well as the most prominent members of aristocratic families and the grande bourgeoisie.

The Department of the History of Russian Culture owns an album of projects of jewelry by K. Faberge, where on 60 sheets of the album are glued 1283 drawings, made with watercolor, gouache, pencil and ink. These drawings are a kind of retrospective of the work of the masters of the famous firm. Jewelry drawings are made in a variety of graphic techniques of the early XIX century: graphite, watercolor painted with varnish, a pen, ink, iron-gallic ink, mezzo-tinto, painted engraving.

Restoration work will be carried out within three years. After completing of the restoration work the album will take its place in the exposition of the Faberge Museum in the General Staff Building

The project includes the following works: technical and technological research; photographic fixation; removal of drawings from album sheets; mechanical cleaning; removal of traces of glue; gluing gaps; replenishment of the loss of the basis paper; pressing; toning; mounting the pictures to their original place in the album; dismantling of metal frames and glass fragments; cleaning of the skin of the binding; manufacturing of glass; installation of glass, picture and metal frame on the binding; conservation measures on the skin of the binding; toning of rubs; manufacture of protective case.

The Album of sketches of jewelry by K.Faberge contains 1283 drawings on 60 sheets.

The project is being carried out with the support of our Friends and patrons.

The project does not have a fixed deadline for completion, since the work is being carried out gradually as sponsorship funds become available.