Biography

Feodor Ivanovich (Friedrich Moritz) Rückert, German by birth, was born in 1840 in France and is known for his works on cloisonne enamel, collaboration with C. Faberge and the creation of his own unique style. After moving to Russia, he studied graver craft and achieved perfection in creating works of silver decorated with enamel painting.

At the age of 46, Rückert opened his own workshop in Moscow, and a year later he achieved such a close cooperation with Carl Faberge that most of his workshop products  bore the brand of a famous jeweler.

Friedrich Rückert opened his own factory in Moscow in 1910. It was located in the house where Fyodor Ivanovich lived himself with his family, workshops were also set there.

It should be noted that F. Rückert collaborated with other firms, asa well as with Faberge: his talent attracted other well-known jewelers of the time, such as Kurlyukov, Ovchinnikov and Marshak.

It was a family business, and Pavel, the son of Fyodor Ivanovich, actively participated in it. Pavel and his brother Fyodor, apart from assiting their father in the workshop, were trained at the Imperial Stroganov Art and Industrial School. It was Pavel who inherited the firm from his fatherrm in the 1900's. He perfected the style, the colors, and the ornaments.

With the outbreak of the First World War, the Rückerts left Moscow for a while and moved to Ufa. In 1917 Fyodor Ivanovich died and was buried in Moscow.

Rückert’s works are characterized by the romantic enamel painting, executed in a charming and elevated style of the Russian antiquity. Folklore, nature, everyday life is fantastically and skillfully with unlimited imagination woven into fairy stories. The most complicated manual work, labor-intensive and cloisonne enamel - in the works of Rückert looks like inlaid with precious stones. Miniatures created in the technique of enamel, are the precise copies of the famous artists' paintings.

Despite following the technology and fashion trends of that period, Rückert created his own pattern, both from the technological point of view, and selection of scenes and color solutions.