MOSS AGATE EGG
Moss agate, silver
H. 6½ inches • Diam. at lip of the lower section 3⅛ inches
 
WORKMASTER: Julius Alexandrovich Rappoport

DATE: 1899–1908

PLACE: St. Petersburg

MARKS OR SIGNATURES: On one upright scallop shell at the base: I.P., in Cyrillic, in an oblong punch; 84, crossed anchors and vertical sceptre; the same on the lip mount but partially struck; the same, fully struck, on the finial.
 
PROVENANCE: Warren Gibson, Milwaukee
Private Collection, Wisconsin (until 2004)

REFERENCES: Milwaukee Art Museum, The Warren Gibson Collection, exhibition catalogue, 1982, catalogue number 77, illustrated.
 
One of the few native Russian artisans to achieve prominence within the Fabergé firm, Julius Rappoport (1851–1917) was born Isaac Abramovich Danowski in the province of Kovno. He pursued a silversmithing apprenticeship in Russia and at the workshop of Scheff in Berlin, becoming a master silversmith in St. Petersburg in 1883 or 1884. At that time, he registered his I.P. (Cyrillic) hallmark, which would indicate that he had already taken the name of Rappoport. He organized his own atelier at 2 Spasskii poutlock, which later moved to larger quarters at 65 Ekatarinskii Canal in a building owned by Fabergé’s sister. About 1890, Rappoport adopted the first name and patronymic of Julius Alexandrovich and converted from Judaism to the Lutheran faith. It is thought that he did so in order to achieve greater status as a silver purveyor. Around this time, Rappoport joined the Fabergé staff, which provided two major benefits, enhanced financial security and an expanded clientele.
 
Rappoport is perhaps best known today as the artisan who first fabricated Fabergé’s silver animals, a project he undertook about 1890. However, he also made a specialty of silver mounts for hardstone, wood, glass or ceramic objects. These frequently took the form of animals as well: match strikers and holders as pigs, fish or birds; cigar lighters as wolves; and ink stands as bulldogs. Rappoport also created gold, as well as silver mounts, for costly imported cameo-cut glass in the Art Nouveau style by Emile Gallé (French, 1846–1904); these were particularly admired by the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Tsar Nicholas II.
 
In this case, Rappoport fabricated the sophisticated silver Louis XV, or rococo, mounts for the richly figured moss agate body. These are noteworthy for their adept use of flowerheads, shell motifs and foliate scrolls in creating small-scale utterly coherent rocaille ornament. The final effect of the egg-form box is that of understated elegance. The Rappoport workshop would not, of course, have fabricated the moss agate two-part body. This would have been delivered to the shop with the instructions to fabricate the desired silver mounts. Such a division of labor involving artisans only with their particular specialty did much to ensure the extraordinarily high quality of Fabergé’s workmanship.
 
Given the significance attached to the occasion of Easter by the Russian Orthodox Church, it is almost certain that this egg was made as an Easter present. The splendor of the Fabergé imperial Easter eggs and their overwhelming celebrity with the lay public has caused less extravagant eggs by Fabergé to be unjustly overlooked. Yet this is an undeniably handsome and beautifully crafted object by the renowned maker, and it is fully worthy of the beholder’s attention.
 
Such an egg, presented on Easter morning to a Russian Orthodox believer, would have symbolized a number of important things. One was the miracle of the Resurrection; another was the reawakening of the Russian earth after the long and hard winter. With this came the connotations of renewed life, an easier existence and the eagerly anticipated return of spring with its gentler climate, flowers and the planting of crops.
 
Please contact for price