Faberge from the Front
20 Jan, 2009
Items of Fabergé
from the Russian career of one of Salisbury's most distinguished
First World War veterans are being sold in the city on
29th January. The late Major General Geoffrey Brooke was
a familiar, if slightly eccentric, figure to residents prior to his
death in 1966. He was a keen and superb horseman, both in his
military role for the 16th Lancers, and in countless
cups and competitions away from the battlefield. His skill and
bravery during the 1914-18 conflict saw his rapid promotion through
the ranks, his award of a Distinguished Service Order, and bar;
importantly, he was also the very first man to be gazetted for the
new Military Cross on 1st January 1915.
Prior to the war,
Brooke was stationed in St Petersburg as part of the military
attachment to the British Embassy. It was here that he met his
first wife, Veronica von Mechin (known as Vera), daughter of
General Baron Saltz and part of an immensely wealthy Russian
family. The Brookes' marriage did not survive the war and they
divorced in 1922.
The only lasting
mementoes of this doomed relationship are two Karl Fabergé enamel
photo frames and a set of six buttons, now being sold at Woolley
and Wallis Salerooms by Major General Brooke's grandson. Roughly
dating from the time of the marriage in the early years of the
20th century, the pieces are fine examples of the work
of Russia's most famous craftsman and are estimated in the
Jewellery sale between £2,000 - 6,000. Having been in the family
for over 100 years, Brooke's descendants had no idea of their value
and were delighted when they brought them to jewellery specialist,
Jonathan Edwards, for appraisal. Jonathan is confident that the
pieces will do well; "Fabergé items are very strong at the moment
and are really defying the current economic downturn. The Star of
David frame in particular is highly unusual and I have strong hopes
that this legacy from Major General Brooke's Russian marriage will
be very popular".
Brooke remarried
in 1926 and helped his new wife, Dorothy, to set up the Brooke
Hospital for veteran war equines in Cairo, a welfare charity which
still survives today. The couple's love of horses dominated their
retirement and Major General Brooke wrote countless books, both
instructional and fictional, on horse husbandry and hunting. The
walking stick which he was so often seen with around Salisbury in
later years, in fact converted to a stick for measuring polo
ponies. Perhaps Brooke's devotion to horses was in part a
reflection of the service he received in wartime from his equine
comrades, as he took them into battle against an increasingly
mechanised and heavily armed enemy.