Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.In the rarefied world of Fabergé collecting, few events generate as much excitement as the emergence of a long-hidden trove of these objets d’art. The upcoming sale of the Castle Howard Fabergé menagerie, which will be put up for auction at Sotheby’s Geneva on 6 May, promises to be just such an occasion, offering connoisseurs and neophytes a rare opportunity to acquire pieces from one of the last private collections of Fabergé animals to remain in the setting of a grand stately home.Statelies hardly come grander than Castle Howard, the baroque Yorkshire palace built by John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. And its jewel-like zoo of Lilliputian animals carved from exotic hardstone is commensurate in importance. Made in St Petersburg from the 1890s until the first world war, years that straddled the golden age of Edwardian England and the dying days of imperial Russia, Carl Fabergé’s sculptures are among his most desirable works. The animals roamed the dining tables (on occasion they were used at Castle Howard as fanciful takes on name cards at dinner, with each guest assigned an animal), desks, drawing rooms and display cabinets of the early-20th-century leisure class, with no higher purpose than to delight and amuse.The 31-strong Castle Howard collection is rich in creatures great and small: miniature pachyderms rendered in obsidian and rock crystal (estimated at £50,000 to £70,000), small scurrying rodents carved from topaz and smoky quartz (£20,000 to £30,000), multiple elephants, each in a different pose and material (£8,000 to £50,000), a rare agate hoopoe with gold feet and its original fitted case (£45,000 to £65,000), and an obsidian rhinoceros (£50,000 to £70,000). I remember my mother sitting at the dining-room table, stroking it gently as if it were a living thingThe majority was bought by the parents of the castle’s current custodian, Nick Howard, “probably in the early ’50s”. The animals have led a sheltered existence, spending most of their time locked away in a safe, emerging only to grace the table at the grandest of dinners. Howard remembers the profound anxiety that accompanied one of their rare appearances. “After getting them out and putting them on the table, all I was thinking about throughout dinner was putting them away straight afterwards.” A jewelled agate model of a hare (estimated at £40,000 to £60,000) holds a particularly fond place in his heart. “I remember my mother sitting at the dining-room table, stroking it gently as if it were a living thing.” For Helen Culver Smith, Sotheby’s global head of Fabergé and Russian works of art, the Siberian ibex is a favourite. “The use of the stone is incredible,” she explains. The ibex, estimated at £50,000 to £70,000, showcases Fabergé’s thoughtful use of materials. In this case a single piece of banded agate is used to replicate the animal’s natural colouration and musculature; particularly effective is the translucent honey colouring of the magnificent horns that arc backwards over the head. Receipts show that some of the collection came from Spink & Sons Ltd, London, and prior to that, the respected Fabergé specialist Wartski, where today joint MD Kieran McCarthy stresses the importance of doing one’s homework and consulting reputable dealers and auction houses before building a collection. Some animals may have gold elements, such as legs, that bear stamped marking and, if you are really fortunate, the original holly-wood box with its silk and velvet interior. Often it is only scrupulously documented provenance that attests to the “honesty” of a piece; important to establish, given the prevalence of forgeries. It seems irreverent to speak of a starter Fabergé animal, but for those fostering an interest, small carvings of frogs and toads are sometimes priced in the low- to mid-five figures. Pieces depicting unusual or little-seen animals, with well-documented provenance, push prices into six figures.A sculpture that sold at Christie’s in Paris last November is a very good example of how a well-catalogued piece can go over its estimate. The agate model of a kiwi bird by Fabergé workmaster Henrik Wikström was very conservatively estimated at €70,000-€90,000. It could be precisely dated because it was stamped “LFB” for Fabergé’s London branch, a rare mark only used on items that were sent from Russia to London between late 1910 and early 1911. An inventory number scratched on the kiwi suggests that it was purchased from the London branch just after a cockerel, bought by Queen Alexandra, and prior to a chinchilla, purchased by the Marquess and Marchioness of Ripon. The kiwi sold for €378,000.Fabergé animals that share a likeness with netsuke, the small ornamental Japanese sculptures made from the 17th century, attract those collecting too. Last spring, Elmwood’s saleroom crackled with the electricity of a high-stakes auction duel. A dust-bathing sparrow in jewelled obsidian, echoing a piece by the revered netsuke carver Horaku, captivated bidders. It flew past its pre-sale estimate of £40,000-£60,000, soaring to a final price of £525,000, with a Japanese collector emerging triumphant.The rare appearances of the Fabergé animals of Castle Howard show that these sculptures are, as Culver Smith puts it, “beautifully useless”, but are still profoundly captivating.
