Kenneth Snowman

Abraham Kenneth Snowman CBE FSA (26 July 1919 – 9 July 2002) was a British jeweller, painter and the chairman of Wartski. He was made a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1994, and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1997. Snowman was educated at University College School, Hampstead. Kenneth's father made regular trips to the Soviet Union, acquiring a total of nine Fabergé eggs between 1925 and 1938, which Kenneth played with as a child.

Wartski career

In 1940, after he married, Snowman entered the family business, rather than pursuing a career as an artist. Like his father, he was an enthusiastic dealer in the works of Carl Fabergé, and wrote a number of scholarly yet accessible books and catalogues on the subject, largely connected with the 1949 and 1953 exhibitions he arranged at Wartski.

Snowman was a friend of the novelist Ian Fleming, and is one of the few people to appear as himself in a James Bond story, The Property of a Lady, and the only one with an important role.

The story also forms the basis for the 1983 film Octopussy, where a Fabergé egg plays an important role, but Snowman's role there is conflated with another and becomes the character Jim Fanning, played by Douglas Wilmer. In the film, prior to the auction of the Fabergé egg, Bond visits the Wartski shop, then at 138 Regent Street, where Snowman/Fanning explains the history of Carl Fabergé's work, and then goes with Bond to the sale at Sotheby's.

Personal life Snowman married Sallie Moghilevkine in 1942, they remained married until her death in 1995. They had a son, Nicholas Snowman, co-chairman of Wartski since 1998–2002, and chairman since then.

Selected publications