As is known, in 1714 the first state public museum, the Kunstkamera, was founded in St. Petersburg. Today, over 200 museums operate in the Northern capital, and their number is constantly growing. One of them is the hugely popular Faberge Museum. Every year it receives more than 420 thousand visitors. The institution is located in the Naryshkin-Shuvalov Palace at the corner of the Fontanka embankment and Italianskaya street.
The house on the Fontanka Embankment, 21 in St. Petersburg was built for the Vorontsov family. Then, in the 1790s, it was a compact mansion with an eight-column portico. The name of the architect has not been established, it is only known that the building was made in the style of Giacomo Quarenghi. In 1799, the house was bought by an influential socialite, Maria Antonovna Naryshkina. She significantly expanded the building, improved it and turned it into a real palace. Then the whole of Petersburg knew the house on the Fontanka, the flower of society gathered here: it is not surprising, because the mansion was visited by Alexander I, who made Naryshkina his favorite. The daughter of Maria Antonovna, Sofya Naryshkina, was even considered the emperor’s illegitimate daughter.
In 1844, when another Sofya from the Naryshkin family, Sofya Lvovna, was preparing for marriage with Pyotr Pavlovich Shuvalov, the future St. Petersburg provincial leader of the nobility, significant reconstruction of the palace began. They continued after the wedding – until 1859. The restructuring of the main building and annexes was carried out by the academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts Bernard Simon, and the facades in the spirit of the Renaissance were designed by the architect Nikolai Efimov.
After the revolution, the palace was nationalized. It housed various museums, the Press House, the Leningrad regional branch of the All-Russian Union of Poets, the Leningrad Association of Proletarian Writers, the Molotov House of Engineering and Technical Workers, and even a design organization. At the beginning of the war, the building was badly damaged during a Wehrmacht air raid. Then the two-storey courtyard wing was destroyed, another bomb broke through the roof over the Hall of Columns of the palace and caused a big fire. As a result, a significant part of the interiors perished, the ceiling, painted by the famous painter Domenico Scotti, collapsed. Only 20 years after the Victory, the building was completely restored, and it housed the House of Friendship and Peace with the peoples of foreign countries.
In 2006, the government of St. Petersburg leased the Shuvalov Palace to the Link of Times cultural and historical foundation. According to the terms of the lease, the foundation undertook to restore the building. The work began in 2006, lasted seven years and was carried out without attracting public funds.
On November 19, 2013, the Faberge Museum was solemnly opened in the building, which also operates as a cultural, educational and scientific center. He regularly organizes events related to the history of the famous Russian jeweler Carl Gustavovich Faberge.
The permanent exhibition includes an unparalleled collection of Russian jewelry and arts and crafts of the 19th-20th centuries. The most valuable items here are nine of the 52 Easter eggs created by Faberge for the imperial family. After the revolution, they were taken abroad, but in the early 2000s they were returned to their homeland.
The very first egg, called “The Hen”, was ordered by Alexander III to Carl Faberge in 1885 as an Easter gift for his wife, Maria Feodorovna. The opaque opaque enamel of the egg imitates the shell, and the yolk is made of matte gold. In the yolk “sits” a chicken made of multi-colored gold, and inside it is a miniature imperial crown. The empress liked the gift so much that Faberge received the title of court supplier, and fulfilling orders from the royal family became his annual duty.
The Rosebud Egg was presented by Nicholas II to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna for Easter 1895. It is covered with transparent red enamel and decorated with symbols of fidelity and love: gold wreaths, leafy garlands and diamond arrows. On top of the egg is a watercolor portrait of the emperor, painted on an ivory plate. This masterpiece got its name because of the yellow enamel rose bud with a small button. If you press it, the petals open.
The Coronation Egg, dedicated to the celebrations on the occasion of the coronation of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna, has become a symbol of the Link of Times Foundation. The egg surprise is unique – an exact copy of the coronation carriage created under Catherine II. The shell of the egg is covered with transparent yellow enamel, and overhead enamel eagles are connected by gold branches.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Retired electrician (CC0), Wikimedia Commons/Ninaras (CC BY 4.0), Wikimedia Commons/Mikhail Ovchinnikov (CC BY-SA 4.0)
