EXCEPTIONALLY FINE BELLE EPOQUE BLUE GUILLOCHÉ ENAMEL AND 14K GOLD PHOTOGRAPH FRAME

EXCEPTIONALLY FINE BELLE EPOQUE BLUE GUILLOCHÉ ENAMEL AND 14K GOLD PHOTOGRAPH FRAME The House of Fabergé, Supplier to the Court of His Imperial Majesty, Workmaster Michael Perchin, Russia, end of XIX century. Rectangular, blue guilloché enamel and gold fleur-de-lys frame, gold border with applied rosettes at four corners, the top surmounted by a gold ribbon with cabochon moonstone centre, with the ivory back, the golden frame stand initialed with Alexander III. Signed in Cyrillic Fabergé and with workmaster’s initials in Cyrillic ‘MP’ (Michael Evlampievich Perchin), Russian assay mark 56 for 14k gold scratched inventory number 57821. 11 x 8.5 cm Provenane: Christie’s Geneva, Magnificent Jewels, 16 May 2007, lot 215 (described in Christie’s catalogue ‚The Property of a Lady’) Important Collection, Europe Mikhail Evdampievich Perkhin (1860-1903) was an outstanding master jeweler. From 1886, he was the chief artist of the Karl Fabergé company and later the owner of his own workshop in St. Petersburg. Mikhail Perkhin was born in 1860 in the village of Akulovskaya, Shuya district, near Petrozavodsk. On January 24, 1884, he was registered with the St. Petersburg Craft Council as an apprentice jeweler (likely training in the workshop of Erik Kollin, the chief jeweler of the Fabergé company). In the 1880s, he began working for Karl Fabergé, and in 1885 he became the chief master of the firm. From 1895, he was a second-guild merchant and an honorary citizen of St. Petersburg. Perkhin's workshop produced impeccably crafted, excellent enamel items. The most characteristic technique for the Fabergé firm was enamel over guilloché (mechanical engraving on metal).