A tiny figurine connected to Russia’s last imperial family spent nearly eight decades hidden from public view before emerging from a New York attic and selling for $5.2 million at auction. The hardstone figure, created by the Fabergé workshop in 1912, depicts Nikolai N. It was discovered in 2013 in an attic in Rhinebeck, New York, decades after it had been purchased by an American collector in 1934.
Pustynnikov, a personal Cossack bodyguard to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Emperor Nicholas II.
He began his military service in 1876 and faithfully served Empress Alexandra from the time of her marriage to Emperor Nicholas II in 1894 until the Russian Revolution. After the 1917 Revolution, the Imperial family’s possessions were confiscated and the two Chamber Cossack figures ended up at Pavlovsk Palace. By 1925, the Pustynnikov figure had been sold to American industrialist and art dealer Armand Hammer, who later brought it to the United States. Davis, a Fabergé collector, in New York in 1934. The $5.2 million hammer price also demonstrated the premium attached to works that combine rarity, craftsmanship and a documented connection to the Romanov court.
What began as a forgotten object in an Upstate New York attic therefore turned out to be a surviving fragment of the final years of Imperial Russia, carrying with it a trail that stretched from Fabergé’s workshop and the imperial court to a 1934 New York sale and, nearly 80 years later, one of the most remarkable antique discoveries to reach auction. Pustynnikov served as a Kamer-Kazak, or Chamber Cossack, for Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. The bodyguards were non-commissioned officers taken from the Cossack regiments. Pustynnikov was born in the Cossack city of Novocherkassk, northeast of the Black Sea. Being appointed to attend a member of the Imperial family was a great honour and brought tremendous privileges. He was a highly esteemed servant who was closely identified with the Empress. The figurine had already travelled a remarkable distance before reaching the attic. Hammer later sold it to George H. After that transaction, the object eventually disappeared from public view. The Pustynnikov figure more than doubled that price. The figure was eventually purchased by London jeweller and Russian art dealer Wartski, which has a long history of dealing in Imperial Russian works of art.