including television and radio, completely
obscured the artificial systems described
above. Consequently it is necessary to
examine them afresh before the meaning of
some of Fabergé’s work is fully understood.
At the close of the 19th century the
allusions referred to above were a godsend
to the international jewellery trade and were
enthusiastically exploited. In New York it was
Tiffany that was their greatest exponent but
Cartier and Boucheron in Paris, Garrard,
Hancocks and Giuliano in London and Bolin
and Fabergé in Russia were also the keenest
possible advocates. Indeed the Fabergé
record books from the Holmström
workshop abound with related material (fig
1). However it was not only in Fabergé’s
jewellery but in the famous eggs and
botanical studies that the covert meaning of
flowers and gemstones can be decoded.
Setting aside the meaning the Clover
Egg for a moment let us consider the
unusual way in which it is made. The
enameling techniques used to construct
the openwork shell of the Egg were
virtually unprecedented at Fabergé and
take the form of a delicate tracery of
overlapping trefoils in plique-à-jour
enamel interspersed with others entirely
set with diamonds. Plique-à-jour,
sometimes known as transparent
enamel is sometimes said to have been
invented in the late nineteenth century
but in fact a simple form of it was made
in eighth century France. Undoubtedly
this technically demanding technique
gained momentum in Japan in the
nineteenth century where it had
evolved as an extension of cloisonné¢
enamel. However in Paris Fabergé’s
contemporaries took the process to
new heights of expertise and inspiration.
At the L’Exposition Universelle in Paris
in 1900, where Carl Fabergé was a
member of the jury, plique-à-jour
enamel was shown by a number of
jewellers including Lalique and Fouquet
and was greatly admired.
With the challenge of inventing an
original and witty design for the Easter
egg intended for 1902 it is likely that the
art nouveau jewellery at the exposition
had fertilized Fabergé’s concept of an
egg arranged as a posy of clover, laced
together with a meandering ribbon of
blood-red calibre rubies. Like the
majority of Imperial Easter Eggs it
originally contained a surprise; in this
case a quatrefoil jewel with apertures
for miniatures, presumably likenesses of
the Grand Duchesses, (fig 5). An
undated design of a jewel of this form
42
survives in the Homström archives and is
shown in fig 2.
To scholars of the Imperial Easter
Eggs it is not only the unique application
of plique-à-jour enamel that makes the
egg of 1902 such an enigmatic object but
also its meaning; a meaning that goes well
beyond the simply decorative.
Owing to its heart-shaped leaves all
varieties of clover have associations with
luck and love and appear in aspects of
decorative art as disparate as jewellery and
raffle tickets. Consequently it has been
suggested in The Fabergé Imperial Easter
Eggs (Christie’