Press release
A La Vieille Russie and Parmigiani are excited to announce an exceptional event aimed at collectors and connoisseurs of watches, automatons, and Faberge, as well as all lovers of beautiful and rare objects. The Maurice Sandoz collection of fifty pieces will be exhibited in New York at A La Vieille Russie from October 26th – November 26th, offering a unique opportunity to celebrate watchmaking art. It features mechanical marvels of the past, works of Fabergé including the Imperial Peacock and Swan eggs, and contemporary creations of Parmigiani Fleurier. The Haute Horlogerie brand, also renowned for its excellence in restoration, will exhibit its finest mechanical creations, which exemplify centuries of know-how.
For over 160 years, A La Vieille Russie has forged a highly regarded reputation through its outstanding expertise in antique jewelry, porcelain, silver, and Fabergé automatons and masterpieces. Notwithstanding this extensive list, the renowned gallery is also distinguished in Russian art history. From its establishment in Kiev in 1851, then to Paris in 1920, and now in New York City since 1941, A La Vieille Russie has been a cultural junction, where great collectors of world art, the press, royalty and nobility – Queen Maria of Romania, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and King Farouk of Egypt – have convened. These prestigious customers and the enduring family management of Messrs, Paul, Peter and Mark Schaffer, have woven close ties over time. As such, A La Vieille Russie has succeeded in keeping the legacy of Russian culture alive.
Maurice Sandoz, a writer, composer and enthusiast of timepieces and automatons, had an eye for exceptional pieces. Upon his arrival in the United States in 1941, Sandoz began to cultivate a close relationship with A La Vieille Russie. Through this relationship, Sandoz acquired in 1954 the celebrated Imperial Swan Egg, created by the jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé. The Edouard and Maurice Sandoz Foundation Collection now consists of several pieces by the legendary Russian jeweler, including the Miniature Piano, The Fabergé Imperial Peacock Egg, the Youssoupoff Egg, the Golden Peacock, and of course, the Imperial Swan Egg.
This fall the Maurice Sandoz collection will be displayed at A La Vieille Russie in honor of the gallery's brilliant expertise. The breathtaking Fabergé pieces, along with other exceptional specimens of watchmaking art, will be gathered from the Edouard and Maurice Sandoz Foundation (FEMS) and the Watchmaking Museum at Château des Monts in Le Locle (MHL) for audiences at A La Vieille Russie. Pocket watches, the famous perfume spray gun, cages with songbirds, snuffboxes, and automaton clocks and animals are among the masterpieces that will be on exhibit.
Parmigiani Fleurier, renowned as one of the most prestigious contemporary Haute Horlogerie brands, demonstrates the genuine, extraordinary passion of its master watchmakers through the craftsmanship of each and every Parmigiani piece. Parmigiani's restoration workshop houses treasures undergoing restoration or conservation, which are in high demand by the world's great museums. Michel Parmigiani, the restorer of the Maurice Sandoz collection, remains the keeper of this knowledge. His commitment to a centuries-old tradition of excellent watchmaking manifests itself in the creation of contemporary, exclusive mechanical pieces. Such pieces will be exhibited for the first time at A La Vieille Russie. While each and every piece within the Sandoz collection boasts a variety of unique features, Parmigiani chose to recreate one of the piece's mechanisms in tribute to the event – a timepiece with telescopic hands that run around the circumference of an oval-shaped dial – a nod to the inventiveness of the master watchmakers of the past.
A la Vieille Russie
781 Fifth Avenue
New York
26 October - 26 November 2011.
