Lot 309: A Massive Fabergé Silver Tankard with Coins, Workmaster Julius Rappoport, St. Petersburg, circa 1897-1899

the tankard in early 18th century style, the handle, cylindrical body, and domed, hinged lid chased with vines of bay laurel and berries and set with thirteen coins and medallions commemorating the reigns of all the Romanov emperors and empresses from Peter I to Nicholas II, the thumbpiece realistically cast and chased in imitation of bay laurel branches, the interior gilded marked with Cyrillic initials of workmaster, Fabergé in Cyrillic beneath the Imperial warrant and with 88 standard, also with scratched inventory number 4347

measurements height 9 1/8 in. alternate measurements 23.2 cm

Silver tankards and beakers set with coins or chased with profile portraits of real or imagined rulers were frequently produced for elite Russian patrons in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Russian and Baltic silversmiths based their creations on models that had developed in Germany in the 16th century, often to demonstrate the succession of Russian rulers and to underline the legitimacy of the contemporaneous ruler, who was often the commissioner of the piece. In the late 19th century, Julius Rappoport revived the form again, but further embellished it with Neo-Classical or Rococo decorative elements. The center of the hinged cover of this tankard is set with a ruble issued in 1897, shortly after the coronation of Nicholas II and thus illustrates the imperial succession from Peter I to the last Russian emperor. For a silver presentation vase inset with coins by Rappoport given by Emperor Nicholas II to Paul Nadar during his 1896 state visit to France, see Géza von Habsburg, et al, Fabergé: Imperial Craftsman and His World, London, 2000, p. 115. Another vase made by Rappoport in 1890 demonstrates the Romanov succession from Peter I to Alexander III and is now in the Hillwood Museum in Washington, D.C. See [Katrina V.H. Taylor], Fabergé at Hillwood, Washington, D.C., 1983, pp. 18-19. For a covered silver cup in the Rococo manner set with a similar group of coins as those appearing on this tankard, see A. Kenneth Snowman, Carl Fabergé: Goldsmith to the Imperial Court of Russia, London, 1979, p. 79.