Helsinki Winter Sale presents a unique Fabergé brooch designed by Alma Pihl

'Ice' brooch with red cross

Fabergé, Petrograd, 1914, in the original wood case.

Workshop of Albert Holmström, designed by Alma Pihl.

Alloy of silver and platinum, gold pin, diamonds and rubies.

Estimate 45 000 – 55 000 EUR.

There is a captivating story connected to this brooch. The younger sister of Emanuel Nobel, Marta Nobel-Oleinikoff (1881-1973), was a surgeon by education. This was not a usual occupation for a young woman of the upper circles during the early twentieth century. Marta, however, was a determined young person. At the age of twenty-four she married the military physician Georgii Pavlovich Oleinikoff, seventeen years her senior. He had inspired Marta in her studies in medicine. In 1909, Marta completed her studies, specializing in surgery, at the Medical Institute for Women in St. Petersburg.

At the outbreak of World War I, the Nobel family joined forces to assist the empire on home ground. A hospital for soldiers injured at the front was founded. The Nobel Hospital, as it was called, was accommodated in a building named The People’s House on Lesnoy Prospect, a house built for the convenience of the staff at the Nobel factories. It could without notable changes be turned into a hospital. Some one hundred and fifty patients were bedded in two large halls and in the library. The smaller rooms served ad offices, operation, x-ray, and baggage rooms. Young Marta Nobel-Oleinikoff was appointed chief physician of the hospital. Four dedicated young women surgeons worked with her. They were Vera Andreevna Moltianov, Masia Skarovna Freiberg, Alice Iakovlevna von Dehn (née Hoffmann), and Vera Petrovna Morell. All of these young women lacked experience and deeper knowledge of their profession, but they courageously took on this demanding work. The reason was the lack of skilled surgeons, all of whom had been called to the front lines. The nurses were recruited from Kauffmann Red Cross nurses’ home. Most of them had been hastily trained as “war sister”, but like the entire staff at the hospital, they were very much committed to their important work.