Antiques: Russian Treasures

Source: The New York Times, December 19, 2003
By Wendy Moonan.

Excerpted from The New York Times, December 19, 2003. Page E41.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Russian Treasures
The 150-year-old company À la Vieille Russie has greatly expanded its gallery at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street. “We wanted to have more space to do exhibitions,” said Mark Schaffer, an owner. The first show, “St. Petersburg and Imperial Style,” includes antique Russian jewelry, Russian furniture, large Russian paintings, Imperial porcelain and enamel-monogrammed glasses.

A Fabergé silver caviar dish in the form of a salmon and a Fabergé cut-glass-and-silver punch bowl would look good atop the mahogany ladies’ writing table inlaid with marquetry foliage. Above it you could hang the portrait of Czar Nicholas II by Nikolai G. Shilder, which Mr. Schaffer said is similar to one by Shilder in the Peterhof Palace Museum, outside St. Petersburg. And for the last smokers in the world, there is a gilded silver Fabergé lighter in the form of a miniature samovar, circa 1900.