Artwork Page for Bell Push

Details / Information for Bell Push

Bell Push

c. 1895–1915
maker

House of Fabergé

(Russian, 1842–1918)
Culture
Russia, St. Petersburg
Medium
silver gilt, enamel, bowenite, cabochon sapphire
Measurements
Diameter: 3.5 x 5.8 cm (1 3/8 x 2 5/16 in.)
Credit Line
The India Early Minshall Collection 1966.472
Public Domain
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Location
211 Fabergé
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Did You Know?

The advent of electricity in the 1880s made systems of buttons and bell pushes to call servants more efficient than the old lever and pully system within the wall that often broke with a vigorous tug.

Description

This bell push sat on a dressing table in a wealthy household to summon a servant during the Gilded Age around 1900. Life "below stairs" wasn't as easy as movies and television have portrayed it. Servants could be summoned at all hours of the day and night, interrupting their work, and causing disruption at the whim of the wealthy owners or their guests. The House of Fabergé became the most celebrated Russian supplier of such luxury goods as servant bell pushes. As court jeweler to the Russian imperial family, the Fabergé firm created jewels and luxurious accessories both for the tsar and the Russian state as well as other European royalty and aristocrats.
A bell push features a circular base of translucent pale green bowenite and a domed center of pink enamel with a wavy pattern. At the center, a dark blue sapphire button sits within a silver-gilt floral rosette. Four silver-gilt garlands drape across the dome. A beaded metal ring marks the junction between the enamel and stone, which has a small silver mechanism protruding from its top edge.

Bell Push

c. 1895–1915

House of Fabergé

(Russian, 1842–1918)
Russia, St. Petersburg

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