A Fabergé copper bowl, Moscow, 1914

During the Great War, Fabergé produced an impressive variety of objects that we would not expect from the jeweller’s workshops. Adapting to the austerity of the time, objects ranged from bowls and cigarette cases to kitchen utensils such as field samovars and saucepans and were embossed with Fabergé and inscribed ‘War 1914’. Intended as small gifts, the items were usually commissioned by the government and presented to soldiers and officers of the Imperial Army by Emperor Nicholas II. As the sons of Russian nobility would write from the front to their mothers that they had food but lacked cookware to eat in, their mothers would also commission cookware by Fabergé to send to their children. In parallel, Fabergé continued to work on commissions for the Imperial family. These practical and historically important objects in the firm’s history, were made of less valuable metals such as copper, brass or steel.

For a similar wartime bowl in silver, please see I. Collins, exhibition catalogue, Fabergé from St Petersburg to Sandringham, Norwich, 2018, p. 126