On Thursday, 10th April 2025, the Société des amis du Louvre [Society of Friends of the Louvre] in Paris announced that it had acquired and donated to the Louvre Museum, a triptych icon that belonged to Russia’s last Tsar.

Created in 1895 by Mikhail Evlampievich Perkhin (1860-1903), a leading workmaster of the House of Fabergé, the icon and adorned with precious stones was presented by members of the Russian aristocracy to Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna on the occasion of the birth of their daughter and first child Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna [16th (O.S. 3rd) November 1895].

The 30 cm [12 in.] triptych icon was purchased for 2.2 million euros [$2.5 million USD]. It is made of various materials: Karelian birch, oil painting, gilded silver, gold with enamel, pearls, emerald, ruby and sapphires.

During the interwar period, the icon became part of the historical collection of the gallery A La Vieille Russie, based in Paris and then in New York, which had acquired it at the time of the sale of the Romanovs’ jewels and other precious objects by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s.

It has been exhibited only once, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1977, after which it was stored in the collection of the art dealer Leon Greenberg.

The Society of Friends of the Louvre decided to acquire and donate the icon to the museum “as part of a wider €4 million sponsorship programme aimed at supporting the museum’s major projects, including the creation of a new Department of Byzantine and Christian Oriental Arts”, which is scheduled to open in 2027.

“It will be one of the major works of the new department of the museum, because of its history and its creation by one of the most prestigious goldsmiths of the House of Fabergé, famous for his decorative eggs that marked the end of the Romanov reign,” said a spokesperson for the Louvre Museum

Based in Paris, France the Société des amis du Louvre is a voluntary association created in 1897 whose purpose is to purchase objects of artistic, archaeological or historical value for the museum. It is the largest private patron of the Louvre: today the Society has 67,000 members, , mostly in France, whose contributions and donations allow it to have an annual budget for the acquisition of works of art in the amount of about 3 million euros.

© Paul Gilbert. 11 April 2025