Horses for Courses

On 19 March 2025 it was nice to return to auctioneering civilization – in Newbury, an affluent horseracing centre 60 miles west of London on the edge of the Berkshire Downs.

This was no on-line sale but a proper physical one, in the flesh, held in the charming Georgian premises of Dreweatts (part of the Gurr Johns art advisory group) on the banks of the languid River Lambourn. Just like in the Good Ol’ days there was a printed catalogue, with each of the 111 Russian artworks beautifully illustrated (Sotheby’s and Christie’s are too stingy to produce catalogues any more). The sale contained 61 lots of Fabergé, mostly acquired from the trade by a U.K. private collector over a 30-year period. I was told he was selling up because he was ‘getting old, and down-sizing.’ I reckon he could have fitted all his Fabergé into his lunch-box: the biggest item (a Rückert enamel beaker) was 4 inches tall.

“The mastery of fabergé, jewellery and objects of vertu” catalogue cover

 

All 111 lots sold, generating a premium-inclusive total of £997,900. I’ve occasionally come across decent bits n’bobs at local auctions – but a £1m sale! Mind you, Dreweatts are no provincial novices. They’ve been in business since 1759, and held a two-day exhibition in London – on Pall Mall, no less – a week beforehand.

‘A white-glove sale tells its own story about the health of the market’ gushed Antiques Trade Gazette. The Fabergé material, meanwhile, brought £705,000 – double predictions.

 

Apart from producing a highly professional catalogue, and laying on a stylish preview in the capital, Dreweatts posted a crisply filmed promotional video on their website. This featured a conversation between their in-house Jewellery Specialist Charlotte Peel, with her charming Central European accent, and the venerable Geoffrey Munn, once of Wartski. I took a look.

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Laid out on a table in front of the two – in a scene straight out of Bargain Hunt (the bit where the competitors’ specialist unveils their caboodle to an auctioneer) – are a handful of pieces of what Charlotte calls Far-bergé. Geoffrey reacts by treating Charlotte as if she has just wandered on to the Antiques Roadshow with some of her ‘favourite pieces’ from the family attic. He wants her to know she’s come to the right man. ‘I started looking at Fabergé things when I was 19’ Geoffrey tells her. ‘And I’ve been looking pretty well ever since. So you’ve got 61 lots of Fabergé, right?’

‘About sixty’ corrects Charlotte.

Lot 78, A gold, silver gilt and enamel taper stick holder

 

They begin by discussing Lot 78: a gold, silver gilt and enamel taper stick holder. ‘It’s a joke object’ snorts Geoffrey. ‘Utterly charming and completely useless.’ The item (est. £10,000-15,000) will make £26,000 despite his downbeat assessment.

The buyers and recipients of such items, continues Geoffrey, were ‘the contemporary élite.’ He name-checks Queen Alexandra (wife of King Edward VII). Up pops a photo of Empress Alexandra (wife of Tsar Nikolai II). The two are traditionally confused by English auction houses.

Then Geoffrey decides to reverse rôles. ‘Tells us about that!’ he commands Charlotte, pointing to a Pendant on a chain.

Lot 17, Aquamarine and Diamond Pendant

 

‘A beautiful pear-shaped aquamarine’ replies Charlotte hurriedly. ‘Slightly greenish blue.’

Geoffrey thinks it has ‘subliminal’ appeal. ‘You’ve found a lot more about this, haven’t you?’ he prods.

‘The vendor came to us with it’ reveals Charlotte. ‘It was left to her by her mother, who had been gifted it by a friend, who had escaped Russia at the age of 12, having sown the jewel into the hem of her dress. Her father was a doctor.’

‘Hmm’ murmurs Geoffrey. ‘Extraordinary.’

It’s not clear if he’s referring to the friend’s daring escape or to her precocity as a seamstress. Or to her father being a doctor. In the excitement Charlotte forgets her lines. ‘You didn’t find any marks on this’ prompts Geoffrey, before adding accusingly: ‘You found something else, didn’t you?’

‘We did’ replies a chastened Charlotte. ‘A scratched inventory number.’

I sit up. An inventory number! Why didn’t they call Skurlov?

‘Looking at it I thought the lettering and sequence of numbers looked a lot like a Fabergé inventory number’ mumbles Charlotte. ‘So I called you.’

‘That’s right!’ remembers Geoffrey proudly. ‘And I called somebody else.’

Who did Geoffrey call? He keeps mumm. We’ll never know.

‘That would mean it was given by the imperial family as one of the many gifts they were giving’ concludes Charlotte, by now a little flustered.

‘Mmmm’ goes Geoffrey for about the 57th time, looking Charlotte in the eye. ‘Ravishing.’

Charlotte blushes and mispronounces lazuli and strata, which Geoffrey lets her get away with, for a while. He gently corrects her lazuli 90 seconds later when talking about Afghanistan, and how it was once part of the Russian Empire, and somewhere Fabergé had an agency. Both these snippets of information are news to me.

Lot 16, A Yellow Sapphire and Diamond Pendant

 

The Aquamarine Pendant (est. £7,000-10,000) makes a hefty £43,950. So does a Yellow Sapphire Pendant bought from Wartski for £38,000 when Geoffrey was working there in 2003.

We move on to a ‘Vodka Cup’ with an Art Nouveau pink and yellow gold waterlily base. The cup itself is made from rock crystal, a material with ‘quasi-magical qualities… if you put it against your face it has a little bite’ asserts Geoffrey ridiculously. ‘Hot stuff! Or cold stuff, actually. Very cold stuff!’ He lifts the rumka out of its holder. ‘I can feel it in my hand now’ he reports. ‘It’s absolutely ice cold. That’s how you drink vodka. But it’s the most ridiculously impractical object – I wonder if anyone ever took a sip of vodka from it…? Maybe we can, later?’

 

Lot 52, Fabergé two colour gold and rock crystal vodka cup

 

Charlotte changes the subject. She doesn’t like vodka.

The interview lasts 20 minutes in all, which is about 18 minutes too long, though I doubt that anyone (except members of my research team) has ever watched it through to the end. Which is a shame: Chas & Geoff offer a soothing interlude amidst life’s frenetic hurly-burly. Geoffrey definitely earns his vodka.

 

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Unlike the big London firms, who offer zero information about a sale once it’s over, Mrs Peel (doesn’t that name have a lovely Diana Rigg ring to it?) happily supplied detailed information about when and where items were bought – and for how much.

 

The silver-gilt and cloisonné enamel Salt Cellar that made £21,420, for instance, was bought at Sotheby’s in 2004 for £10,350. A cloisonné enamel Cigarette Case by the 11th Artel, acquired from Wartski for £4,400 in 2005, did almost well by reaching £8,190. There was also a handsome return on a Fabergé Locket Pendant in white guilloché enamel with a tiny diamond flower: it cost £13,900 at Wartski in 1999, but sold here £22,680. A jade Pill-Box with ruby thumb-piece by Wigström sold for £17,640, compared to £12,940 at Sotheby’s in 2010.

 

As well as displaying a professionalism that puts the big London firms to shame, Charlotte modestly provided hammer-prices rather than prices inflated with buyer’s premium à la Sotheby’s and Christie’s (please note that, for the sake of consistency, all prices given in this article are premium-inclusive – Dreweatts’ rate being 26%).

Fabergé miniature eggs

 

Top price at the sale was £52,920 for a three-strand Necklace with 41 miniature eggs – 14 of them by the Fabergé workmasters Fedor Afanasiev & August Hollming. Highest price among the non-Fabergé material was £25,200 for an early 20th century diamond and enamel Egg Pendant. As for Geoffrey’s Cup of Vodka: it was downed for £11,970 – twenty times the £550 it cost at Wartski in 1969. I’m not certain if Geoffrey was working for them back then or not.

 

Lot 29, Diamond and enamel egg pendant and case

 

One thing’s for sure, though: I’ll be galloping back to Newbury next time a Dreweatts Russian Sale comes under Starter’s Orders!