Fabergé continues its annual tradition of seasonal surprises with a beguiling new locket featuring a dancing penguin hidden inside.
This is the latest addition to its Heritage collection, which celebrates Fabergé’s love of surprise and wit and encompasses complex traditional techniques, such as the delicate art of guilloché enamelling and hand-engraving.
The playful penguin is crafted from 18k yellow gold, decorated with black and white enamel and set with a glittering white diamond eye. The penguin dances on a sparkling silicate agate base, which replicates the icy landscape of the Antarctic. It is encased in an 18k white gold egg-shaped locket, hand-painted with black enamel and studded with white diamonds and hangs from a contrasting 18k yellow gold chain. The elegant design is perfect for winter and surprising a loved one this gifting season.
Peter Carl Fabergé was renowned for creating quirky little animals from hardstone as charms and ornaments. Art historians have described these animals – the Fabergé menagerie – as possessing ‘psychologically interpretive aspects’, or human-like qualities. The accentuation of specific characteristics of each subject also gave them distinctive personalities. Fabergé often combined these hardstones with precious metals and coloured gems, seamlessly integrating each with the other to create miniature works of art. This lively penguin is therefore a perfect example of Fabergé’s trademark style.