Mastery of Design: A Fabergé Flower Study, 1900

Flower Study of
Cornflowers and Ranunculus
Carl Fabergé, 1900
The Royal Collection

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, did her part to add to The Royal Collection. She had inherited the family’s fondness for the designs of the House of Fabergé and added several unusual pieces.


This small sculpture is by the hand of Carl Fabergé himself. Created in 1900 of rock crystal, gold, rose-cut diamonds, rubies and enamel, the piece is one of several flower studies that Fabergé undertook in the early Twentieth Century. This one is unusual inasmuch as it combines two different kinds of flowers—cornflowers and ranunculus—as well as a bejeweled bee.

The Queen Mother purchased this piece in 1947 and it has remained one of the stars of the Royal Family’s collection of Fabergé ever since.