Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
At a time when Russians flush with oil money are making headlines spending millions on art, the forthcoming sale of a 100-year-old Faberge clock is causing a stir in the auction world here.
The massive granite-and-silver clock, modeled on the ancient fire- worshipers temple outside Baku, Azerbaijan, will be sold June 1 along with other czarist-era art objects at Bukowskis, Scandinavia's leading auction house.
The reason for the excitement is not because the clock is an outstanding piece of jewelry; most experts agree that the Faberge workshops produced many objects of greater refinement.
Rather, anticipation is linked to the clock's almost mystical provenance and how it fits into Russia's current boom: It was created in prerevolutionary Russia as a monument to immense oil wealth; it was brought to Sweden after the Bolsheviks took power, with the famous Nobel family as its caretaker; expectations are high that it will be sold to a Russian buyer and return to its land of origin.
The auction comes at a propitious time for the sellers. Speculation about newly rich Russians pouring money into art surged earlier this month after an unidentified man believed by some to be a Russian paid $95.2 million for a 1941 Picasso painting, "Dora Maar With Cat."
In recent years more and more Russians have been attending auctions in Scandinavia, paying increasingly higher prizes for art that left Russia after the revolution. But this year, all records are expected to be broken.
"This clock has so much to tell," said Susann Silfverstolpe, a silver expert with Bukowskis who has set the opening price for the clock at 1 million, or about $1.28 million, to 1.6 million the highest ever for an art object of this kind at an auction in Sweden. "I would say that without the story, the price would be half of what it is."
The tale of the Faberge clock ties together strands of East and West, art and oil. It begins in the 19th century, when Robert and Ludvig Nobel, brothers of the famous Alfred Nobel, created one of the world's leading oil companies, Branobel, in Baku, which at that point was a part of the Russian empire.
Alfred Nobel never took an active part in the running of Branobel, but he was one of the company's largest investors, and a substantial part of the money he set aside for the Nobel prizes came from the Russian oil fields.
The clock on sale in Stockholm was commissioned in 1906 by Emanuel Nobel, son of Ludvig Nobel, who had taken over the company after his father and uncle died. He was one of Russia's leading industrialists, and had become a frequent client at the Faberge workshops in St. Petersburg according to some reports, second only to the czar himself in ordering exquisite jewelry, mainly to hand out as gifts.
The spectacular clock, of gray and red granite decorated with silver and topped at its four corners by red flames of rhodonite, was created as a celebration of Branobel's enormous success. On the front of the base, a silver plaque commemorates the company's production of one billion puds of oil (a pud was 16 kilograms, or 35 pounds); it bears portraits of Ludvig and Emanuel Nobel, a map of Azerbaijan, and an image of he world's first oil tanker, the Zoroaster.
But Branobel's good times were not to last. In 1917 the Bolsheviks took power, and in 1918 Emanuel fled to Stockholm with his family, disguised as peasants. His company was nationalized and great parts of his fortune were lost. The family, however, managed to salvage many of its more precious objects, the magnificent clock among them.
As the Soviet Union became an established part of the international landscape, few expected the eventual repatriation of Russian antiques that ended up in Scandinavia, most brought in by engineers who had worked in the oil industry or on the czar's many modernization projects.
But things changed with the enormous private fortunes made in the new Russia of the 1990s, not least in the oil industry. Wealthy Russians have been turning to international antiques markets for Russian art that left the country after the revolution.
And as demand has risen, prices have followed, reaching a point where the most exclusive objects are being put up for sale. "The Nobels held on to their best objects," said Silfverstolpe. "But now that such incredible prices are being paid, they have realized that maybe it would be a good idea to sell."
(C) 2006 International Herald Tribune. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved
