August & Albert Holmstrom

(1829 - 1903 and 1876 - 1925)

August Holmstrom (in Russian: Август Хольмстром)was born in Helsinki in 1829, son of a bricklayer. After his apprenticeship in St. Petersburg, he became master in 1857 and bought his own workshop. The same year he was appointed headmaster for the House of Fabergé and started working exclusively for the company.

Holmstrom’s workshop was famous for its miniature copies of the Imperial regalia, exhibited at the Exhibition Universelle in Paris in 1900 and nowaday part of the Hermitage Museum collection.

In 1892 the workshop created the Imperial Diamond Trellis Egg (Mc Ferrin collection).

When August died in 1903 his son Albert (in Russian: Альберт Хольмстром) took over the business, maintaining the same quality standards of the artworks made. It is important to notice that the same mark AH lasted for two generations, being used by August first and by his son after him.

Under Albert’s direction, the workshop produced two of Faberge’s finest artworks: the Imperial Winter Egg in 1913 (private collection) and the Imperial Mosaic Egg in 1914, today part of the British Royal Collection.

Albert moved back to Helsinki in 1921, where he opened a workshop with Vaino Hollming. He died four years later.

The Holmstrom workshop is considered one of the finests among Faberge’s masters and it is celebrated for its extraordinary technique and faultless precision.