Today, NRC – one of the leading national newspapers in the Netherlands – printed a cover story in their Cultural Supplement dedicated to how, on certain occasions in the past, the Dutch royal family has dealt with gifts. My research into Fabergé’s 1901 Queen Wilhelmina’s Nephrite Tray, published in the Summer 2018 Fabergé Research Newsletter, was quoted extensively in this article and the tray features both on the cover and on the cover of the Cultural Supplement.
Journalist Arjen Ribbens’ article ‘Royal Gifts, Princely Problems’ – click here – is part of a series dedicated to how the Dutch royal family deals with (inter)nationally important cultural assets, resulting from the national outrage over Princess Christina auctioning off an important drawing by Rubens (click here).
My article A Closer Look at the 1901 Queen Wilhelmina Nephrite Tray Last Seen in 1980 – click here – reconstructs the private, and probably illicit, sale in 1963 by Princess Christina’s father, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, to the London dealer Wartski of one of the most important objects Fabergé has ever made, and the national outrage that was sparked when the disappearance from the royal collection was discovered in 1974.
Ribbens’ article gives an extensive summary of my article.