Faberge, Agafon Karlovich

Born on January 24 (February 5), 1876 in St. Petersburg in the family of Peter Karl Gustavovich Faberge.

From 1887 to 1892 he studied at the German Petrishula in St. Petersburg and at the commercial branch of the Wiedemann gymnasium .

In May 1895, he entered into his father’s business at Faberge , and in the 1900s - 1910s, he led the affairs of the company with his father and brother Evgeny Karlovich. In 1897 he married the daughter of Riga merchant Lydia Treiberg.

Since 1898 - an expert in the Diamond Room of the Winter Palace , an appraiser of the Loan Fund, an appraiser of His Imperial Majesty by proxy of his father.

Following the results of the 1900 exhibition in Paris, he was awarded a gold medal. He was unjustly accused by his father of stealing money, after which their relationship ended and he left his family from Russia (only many years later the family friend himself admitted the theft).

In 1907 he received a gift from his father in the possession of a cottage in Levashovo (now in ruins). Initially, it was an unremarkable house until the time when the architect Karl Schmidt began work on a two-story cottage project. The building of the summer cottage became the decoration of the district. Three glass ceilings, a winter garden where peaches and flowers were grown, a marble staircase, Dutch tiled stoves, room-halls made in the styles of different historical eras. In addition to this, there was water heating, a private power station, and a stable. ^[five]

In 1916, his father was unjustly accused of large embezzlement of the company’s money, after which their relationship ended (only many years later, the former employee of the company Otto Bauer admitted the theft). Agafon opened an antique store.

After the October Revolution, in the fall of 1918, Agafon Faberge secretly transported his wife and five sons to Finland.

In 1919, as a "particularly dangerous element", the Cheka was arrested and placed in a concentration camp, the apartment and cottage were requisitioned. In 1920 he was released.

He dissolved the marriage with Lydia Treyberg in the Soviet registry office and in the same place entered into a civil alliance with the former teacher of her children from her first marriage, Maria Alekseevna Borzova (1889-1973). In 1923, their son Oleg was born.

From 1922 to 1924 he was authorized by Gokhran of Petrograd and combined his position with the trade in antiques .

On the night of December 10, 1927, together with his wife Maria and son Oleg, he was secretly transported by smugglers to Finland over the ice of the Gulf of Finland , having previously transferred money, a collection of postage stamps and several paintings through Antia Hackzell’s acquaintances. In Helsinki, he settled in a bought and rebuilt four-story building. He lived off the sale of antiques and part of his richest collection of stamps ^[6] .

In 1940, the house was sold under the hammer. Faberge moved to a modest rented apartment in Helsinki.

He died on October 20, 1951 in Helsinki . He was buried in the Orthodox cemetery in the district ^[7] .

Agafon Karlovich collected carpets, porcelain, jadeite figurines, Buddha figurines and other Chinese and Japanese objects, vases, prints, silver glasses, paintings, Japanese tsuba guards, netsuke, preferring oriental art ^[2] .

Contribution to Philately

A.K. Faberge is known as a Russian philatelist ^[3] , had the largest collection of Finnish postage stamps in the world, as well as Russian and Polish ^[2] .

After the October Revolution, he took an active part in the development of the Soviet philatelic movement. Already in 1921, A. Faberge, together with A. A. Khalfan, made recommendations on the revision and systematization of the collections of the Museum of Public Communication in Petrograd , but these proposals were rejected. In the 1920s, Faberge was chairman of the Leningrad Regional Department of the All-Russian Society of Philatelists (VOF), a member of the Expert Bureau of the North-Western Regional Department of VOF, an employee of the magazine " Soviet Philatelist ", was involved in the All-Union Exhibition of Philately and Bon in 1924 ^{[8 ]} .

Agafon Faberge owned a unique collection of postage stamps and integral items of the Russian Empire. The Faberge collection was presented at an out-of-competition show during the international philatelic exhibition in Vienna in 1933. The collection caused a furor in the world philately . In 1939, it was sold at auction in London ^{[3] [9]} .

Among the various rare stamps in the collection of Agafon Faberge, there were all three well-known copies of the “Tiflis Unique” ^{[10] [11] [12] [≡]} and the prototype of the first Russian brand . The latter was presented to the collector personally by Nicholas II ^{[13] [≡]} .

• Grandfather - Gustav Faberge (1814-1893), jeweler.
• Father - Peter Carl Faberge (1846-1920), jeweler.
• First wife - Lidia-Julia Aleksandrovna Treiberg (1875, Riga - 1944, Switzerland.)
  • Five sons - Agafon (1898, Petersburg - 1960, Brazil), Peter (1902, Petersburg - 1970, Brazil), Fedor (1904, Petersburg - 1971, Switzerland), Igor (1907, Petersburg - 1982, Switzerland) and Rurik (1909 , Petersburg - 1978, Switzerland) ^[14]
• Second wife - Maria Alekseevna Borzova (1889 - July 16, 1973)
  • Son - (1923 - May 5, 1993).

The National Academy of Philately established the commemorative medal of Agathon and Oleg Faberge . This medal is marked by figures of politics, science, culture and art for their contribution to the popularization and development of philately ^[15] .

Agafon Faberge maintained friendly relations with K. K. Schmidt, a famous Russian collector and theorist of philately ^[16] . Schmidt and Faberge published joint philatelic research on stamps of zemstvo mail :

• Schmidt C. , Fabergé A. Die Postwertzeichen der russischen Landschaftsaemter: Beitraege zur Kunde dieser Marken. Achtyrka - Donez. - Dresden, Germany: Sektion "St. Petersburg" des Internationalen Philatelisten Vereins "Dresden", 1900a. - Bd. 1. - 410 S. (German) ^{[≡] [ ≡ ]} (Retrieved February 1, 2016) Archived March 4, 2011.
• Schmidt C., Fabergé A. Die Postwertzeichen der russischen Landschaftsaemter: Beitraege zur Kunde dieser Marken. Duchowschtschina - Kusnezk. - Dresden, Germany: Sektion "St. Petersburg" des Internationalen Philatelisten Vereins "Dresden", 1900b. - Bd. 2. - 368 S. (German) ^[≡] (Retrieved February 1, 2016) Archived March 4, 2011.

• National Academy of Philately
• c: File: Die Postwertzeichen der russischen Landschaftsaemter Vol I.djvu ^{[^]}
• c: File: Die Postwertzeichen der russischen Landschaftsaemter Vol II.djvu ^{[^]}

• Alexander Rupasov, Valentin Skurlov , Tatyana Faberge, Stanislav Bernev. Agafon Faberge in Red Petrograd. - SPb. : Faces of Russia, 2012 .-- 282 p.
• Rupasov A., Chistikov A. The Fugitive. Agafon Faberge // STOP in Finland: journal. - St. Petersburg: GMP LLC, 2008. - No. 6 (79; July — August) . Archived on September 29, 2015. (Retrieved September 29, 2015)
• Carl Fabergé ja hänen aikalaisensa: Näyttelyjulkaisu / Taideteollisuusmuseo. - Helsinki: Oy A. Tillander Ab., 1980 .-- ISBN 951-99249-6-5 . (fin.)
• Muistikuvia. - Gummerus, 1990. - ISBN 951-30-9468-5 . (fin.)

•   Wikimedia Commons has media related to Agafon Faberge
• Faberge, Agafon Karlovich (neopr.) . Encyclopedia of Petrishule . St. Petersburg: State budgetary educational institution secondary school No. 222 with in-depth study of the German language "Petrishule". Date of treatment September 29, 2015. Archived September 29, 2015.
• The life and incredible adventures of Agathon Faberge