The selling show, to run until November 30, includes jewellery and objets d’art and is introduced by Bentley & Skinner managing director Mark Evans.
Evans said: “The Russian Revolution turned lives upside down and ushered in a new world order. St Petersburg at this time was at its zenith as the centre of luxury and opulence, for which the work of the Imperial goldsmith Carl Fabergé are synonymous. Our exhibition explores the clash of these two contrasting worlds.”
He added that the founding of the firm on Piccadilly in London has connections to the revolution. Leon Shlounde, a young Russian communist and friend of Lenin, later helped his son John Sheldon establish Bentley & Co in London. Later the firm became Bentley & Skinner, under the directorship of Sheldon’s great-grandson.
The revolution forced the closure of the original House of Fabergé which had famously made jewellery and objects for the Russian and wider European royal families.
Among the works on display at Bentley & Skinner and for sale are an enamel desk clock, a diamond and sapphire pendant and ruby cufflinks.
