A Rare Fabergé Carved Smoky Quartz, Gold and Enamel Figural Parasol Handle, Workmaster Henrik Wigström, St. Petersburg, 1910
A Rare Fabergé Carved Smoky Quartz, Gold and Enamel Figural Parasol Handle, Workmaster Henrik Wigström, St. Petersburg, circa 1910. photo courtesy Sotheby's
the smoky quartz handle depicting a naked cherub clinging to the top of a baluster-shaped handle with a pattern of trailing vines, mounted with a collar in translucent salmon pink enamel over a wavy guilloché ground within two-color gold laurel bands; height 3 1/4 in. - Estimate 40,000—60,000 USD. Lot Sold 68,500 USD
with workmaster's initials and 56 standard
PROVENANCE: Sotheby's, Geneva, November 12, 1980, lot 426.
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES: The offered lot is illustrated in Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm, et al, Golden Years of Fabergé: Drawings and Objects from the Wigström Workshop, Graulhet, 2000, p. 29. For other figural cane or parasol handles designed by Wigström, including a cane handle owned by Nicholas II and kept in his study at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo on which cuddling bear cubs seemed to be clinging to the top of the handle, see op. cit., p. 34.
Sotheby's. Important Russian Enamels and Fabergé from a New York Private Collection. 04 Nov 10 New York www.sothebys.com