In 1896, the Kelchs bought a house in St. Petersburg at 28 Sergievskaya Street. At the expense of Varvara Petrovna, in the same year the building was rebuilt by invited architects Schöne, Chagin and Schmidt. Varvara Petrovna herself moved to St. Petersburg for permanent residence only in 1898, having been actively involved in charitable activities in Moscow before: she was the patron of the Society to help the needs of Siberians and Siberians, students in Moscow educational institutions, a member of the Moscow Society of former university students and Honorary Member of the Society for the Benefit of Insufficient Students of Moscow University.
In 1904, Varvara Petrovna left for Paris, leaving her husband a letter with a confession that she had always loved only his brother and her whole “life went awry.” In 1910, the couple officially filed for divorce, the children were raised by their grandmother, Yulia Bazanova. Varvara Bazanova remained in exile and Alexander Kelkh never returned to Russia after his wife left, took upon himself not only the charitable institutions of St. Petersburg, whose guardian was his wife, but also the care of her mother, who died in 1924 in his arms. In 1930 he was arrested and died in the camps. Varvara Petrovna lived a long life and died in Paris in 1959. She was buried in the Russian cemetery in Saint-Genevier de Bois. Some of Varvara Kelch’s jewels have ended up in private collections and are exhibited in various museums around the world.
Alexander Kelkh ordered and presented his wife Varvara Kelkh-Bazanova with 7 Faberge Easter eggs
In the period from 1898 to 1904, the Russian businessman Alexander Kelkh ordered and presented his wife Varvara Kelkh-Bazanova with 7 Faberge Easter eggs made by the jeweler Mikhail Perkhin. In addition, among the customers who ordered and purchased Faberge Easter eggs were famous people of that time: Vanderbilt, Consuelo, the Duchess of Marlborough, the Yusupovs, Alfred Nobel’s nephew Emmanuel Nobel. It became known about the existence of another piece of the jewelry house: the “Rothschild egg”, created in 1902 for the family of American billionaires and kept in their family throughout this time, was put up for auction.
The legacy of the House of Faberge was not only brought to life by the initiative of an artist and entrepreneur who founded a workshop and created a market for its products. The energy of time, the development of the mineral resources of Russia, the rise of commerce and culture, and finally, the personality that stands at the center of these processes, one way or another predetermined what was aesthetically crystallized in the Faberge phenomenon.
Pine cone
Surprise Case with a miniature pendant
Bonbon’yérka
Surprise in the shape of an engraved heart with three miniatures inside, similar to the surprise of the “Lavender” egg.
Varvara Kelkh divorced her husband and moved in 1905 from Russia to Paris. She took with her most of her fortune, including six Faberge eggs.
Chicken Kelkha
The egg is covered with transparent strawberry-red enamel on a guilloche background. eggs from the collection of the Kelch