Louisiana heiress and philanthropist Matilda Geddings Gray (1885-1971) acquired her first object by Faberge in 1933. An artist herself, with a refined aesthetic sensibility, she was sophisticated collector, while the name of the Russian artist-jeweler Peter Carl Faberge (1846-1920) was almost unknown in the United States. Over the following years, Matilda Geddings Gray amassed one of the finest Faberge collections in the world, and Faberge's art has become widely known and internationally sought after.  Of special interest the exhibition features three of the fifty Imperial Easter Eggs created for the Romanov family by Faberge beginning in 1885.

Metropolitan Museum of Art                83rd&Fifth Avenue   www.metmuseum.org