Mastery of Design: Queen Alexandra's Fabergé Pekingese, c. 1907

Pekingese
Carl Fabergé
Crown Copyright
The Royal Collection
via The Royal Collection Trust
Image Courtesy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Another precious animal from Queen Alexandra's farm in miniature, The 1907 Sandringham Commission, this creation of agate and rose-cute diamonds is the work of Carl Fabergé.  

Her Majesty Queen Alexandra was especially fond of smaller breeds of such as the Pekingese, Japanese Chins (known at the time as Japanese spaniels), Tibetan spaniels and papillons. She often traveled with these small dogs who accompanied her from royal residence to royal residence and even went with her abroad.  

The Empress of Japan, in April of 1905, made a gift of four pairs of Pekingese dogs to Queen Alexandra.  However, tragically, only one of the little pups survived the grueling journey from Japan to England.  This Pekingese joined another already in residence with Queen Alexandra and quickly became two of her favorite dogs.  They were called Little Marvel and Little Togo.

This is one or the other of them.  

A 1909 ledger of Fabergé's London branch reveals that a model of a Japanese spaniel called Togo was commissioned however, that's not this one since: 1. the date is wrong, 2. that particular model was in white chalcedony with two rubies for a cost of £29, and 3. and seems to have been made for a French duc.  

I don't know why that last bit was important, but The Royal Collection made rather a  big deal about it, so I figured I'd share it, too.