Russian jeweler Feodor Ruckert

Russian jeweler Feodor Ruckert
Descendants of Ruckert live in Moscow, and they faithfully keep records of their family. Over the years, they preferred to keep silence about their ancestors. The silence was due to the fact that the family – of German origin, and this fact has been the cause of a number of difficulties during World War I, World War II and the Soviet era. Friedrich Mauritz Ruckert, a German by birth, was born in 1840 in the land of Alsace-Lorraine (now the territory of eastern France), and was brought to Russia at the age of fourteen – either by prince Yusupov or by Golitsyn. In Russia the jeweler was named Feodor Ivanovich Ruckert. In 1886, Fyodor opened his own studio of silver products. Beautiful works of Russian jeweler Feodor Ruckert have individual style, with the characteristic elements of Russian Art Nouveau. In 1887 he signed a contract with the Moscow branch of Faberge. Up to 80% of all Ruckert’s workshop products came out with the stigma of “Faberge”. The special color, filigree created a special unmistakable artistic style of Ruckert.

Russian jeweler Feodor Ruckert never worked exclusively for Faberge, but, nevertheless, he was the main supplier of enamel in the Russian style. Feodor Ruckert produced silver decorated with enamel on filigree miniatures on the theme of Russian history, the boyars’ life, folklore. Sometimes they are copies of paintings by famous artists of the time – Makovsky, V.Vasnetsov, I.Kulikov, K.Lebedev, S.Solomko.

After the death of his first wife (she was a German seamstress), Feodor Ruckert married Evgenia Belova, the daughter of a glassblower. The children from the first marriage were brought up in the spirit of the Lutheran Church (Adele, Ida, Paul). Children from his second marriage (Fyodor, Anatoly, Alexander, Evgenia, Maria and Sophia) were brought up in the spirit of the Orthodox Church. The family was large, and the jeweler’s wife invited her niece – Maria Vasilievna Belova to help her.

Evgenia soon died, and Feodor asked Maria to stay with the family to helped him raise the children. However, she agreed to stay with him on the condition to become his wife. At the time, he was sixty-four years old and she was twenty-three.

From 1910 to 1917, Feodor Ruckert was a silver jewelry factory owner in Moscow, located at 29 Vorontsovskaya Street, which was also his own house. The house included premises for shops, offices and living rooms. Here Ruckert spent long hours with Faberge, discussing projects. The famous shop became famous for its amazing enamel painting depicting the beauty and charm of Russian antiquities. The whole family lived in the house of Ruckert on Vorontsovskaya, except two daughters, Ida and Adele. The left part of the house was given to the masters, where they lived with their families.

Later, Feodor Ruckert began taking orders from competing firms of Faberge – the famous workshops – Ovchinnikov, Kurlyukov and Marshak. All the works of Fyodor Ivanovich can be found under the author’s stigma – a woman’s head in the headdress, facing right, with the code of the county by the Greek letter “delta” and 88 silver standard.

All the works of Fyodor Ivanovich can be found under the author’s stigma – a woman’s head in the headdress, facing right, with the code of the county by the Greek letter ‘delta’ and 88 silver standard

Russian jeweler Feodor Ruckert died in 1917. His grave is in the Vedensky Cemetery in Moscow. Works by Feodor Ruckert are in rare museum collections and not often appear in the Russian antiques market. All the works of Fyodor Ivanovich can be found under the author’s stigma – two letters ФР (Russian name Федор Рюкерт), a woman’s head in the headdress, facing right, and figure 88 of silver standard.

Russian jeweler Feodor Ruckert

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