Beyond Fabergé: Imperial Russian Jewelry

Marie Betteley, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, "Beyond Fabergé: Imperial Russian Jewelry"; A rare look at the exquisite world of Russian treasures that lies beyond Fabergé. Imperial Russia evokes images of a vanished court's unparalleled splendor: magnificent tiaras, gem-encrusted necklaces, snuffboxes, and other diamond-studded baubles of the tsars and tsarinas. During that time, jewelry symbolized power and wealth, and no one knew this better than the Romanovs.
The era marked the high point of the Russian jewelers' art. Beginning with Catherine I's reign in 1725, in the century when women ruled Russia, until the Russian Revolution of 1917, the imperial capital's goldsmiths perfected their craft, and soon the quality of Russia's jewelry equaled, if not surpassed, the best that Europe's capitals could offer. Who created these jewels that helped make the Russian court the richest in Europe? Hint: it wasn't Carl Fabergé. This is the first systematic survey in any language of all the leading jewelers and silver masters of imperial Russia.