The World's Most Beautiful Eggs: The Genius of Carl Faberge

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Stephen Smith

Spike Geilinger

Franny Moyle

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Factual: Life Stories

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

25/06/2013

BBC Four - The World's Most Beautiful Eggs: The Genius of Carl Faberge

Stephen Smith explores the extraordinary life and work of virtuoso jeweller Carl Faberge.

Stephen Smith explores the life and work of the virtuoso jeweller Carl Faberge, who transformed his father's modest business into the world's most famous supplier of luxury items.

Stephen Smith explores the extraordinary life and work of the virtuoso jeweller Carl Faberge. He talks to HRH Prince Michael of Kent about Faberge items in the Royal Collection and to Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who spent $100 million acquiring nine exquisite Faberge eggs. The bejewelled trinkets Faberge made for the last tsars of Russia in the twilight of their rule have become some of the most sought-after treasures in the world, sometimes worth millions. 

Smith follows in Faberge's footsteps, from the legendary Green Vaults in Dresden to the palaces of the tsars and the corridors of the Kremlin museum, as he discovers how this fin-de-siecle genius transformed his father's modest business into the world's most famous supplier of luxury items.

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