Mikhail Perkhin

Jeweller, goldsmith, silversmith. Hallmark: ?.?. in a rectangle or oval. Born in the Karelian village of Okulovskaya near the town of Petrozavodsk on Trinity Sunday (1860) in the family of a peasant called Yevlampy Perkhin (1825–1877) and his wife Anna Semyonova (1821–1899). Christened seven days later at the Church of St Nicholas in the village of Yalguba (1860). Worked alongside his father (late 1860s) and studied at parish school in Yalguba (1870s). Moved to St Petersburg (1878), where he trained under jeweller Vladimir Finikov (1878–79) and married his daughter Tatyana (1883), who gave birth to children Yevgenia (1884), Alexandra (1886), Zinaida (1890), Mikhail (1894) and Anna (1900). Qualified as a journeyman (1884) and a master (1886). Appointed head jeweller of Carl Fabergé following the departure of Erik August Kollin (1886). Lived at 6 Officers (now Decembrists) Street and opened a workshop on the corner of 11 Bolshaya Morskaya Street and 6 Brick Lane (1888). Worked on the most important Fabergé commissions (1886–1903), including presents for the silver-wedding anniversaries of Tsar Alexander III and Empress Maria Fyodorovna (1891) and Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna the Elder (1899), weddings of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna (1894) and Tsar Nicholas II and Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt (1894), coronation of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna (1896), twenty-eight Easter eggs for the Romanov family (1887–1903) and seven Easter eggs for the Kelch family (1898–1904). Merchant of the second guild (1891) and honorary citizen of St Petersburg (1895). Built a wooden house at 9 Stoessel (now Red Star) Street in Tsarskoe Selo (1895). Elected a deputy for the inspection of commercial and industrial establishments (1898). Awarded a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris (1900). Moved the workshop into the third floor of the Fabergé shop at 24 Bolshaya Morskaya Street (1901). Financed the reconstruction of the Church of St Nicholas in Yalguba (1895), donated icons and precious ornaments (1899–1900) and served as trustee of the Yalguba Zemstvo School (1896–1903). Died of tabes dorsalis in a lunatic asylum and buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in St Petersburg (1903), where his work was continued by his chief assistant Henrik Immanuel Wigström (1904–17).