A Fabergé egg made for the last Russian Tsar will be auctioned in London this December, when The Winter Egg may set a third Fabergé auction record.
Christie’s sale The Winter Egg and Important Works by Fabergé from a Princely Collection on December 2 will sell nearly 50 Fabergé items.
But the Winter Egg is undoubtedly the star.
It was made in 1913 as an Easter gift from Tsar Nicholas II to his mother, Tsarina Maria Feodorovna. Its designer, Alma Pihl, was born in Moscow in 1888 and became Fabergé’s most-celebrated woman designer.
Her Mosaic Easter Egg with Surprise (a panel showing the Russian imperial family) is now in the collection of the British Royal Family. That egg was confiscated from the Tsar during the October Revolution of 1917 and the establishment of the Soviet Union.
The Winter Egg left Russia, perhaps with the Empress Dowager in 1919, and ended up in a private collection in the west.
The wedding of Tsar Nicholas II’s parents. He gave the Winter Egg to his mother, Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, but as the Romanovs lost their power and palaces to revolution the egg went west.
When it was made it was the most expensive Easter Egg ever, costing the Tsar nearly 25,000 roubles (an annual wage for a factory worker might be around 22 rubles).
For his money, the tsar got 1,660 diamonds on the exterior alone. They create the illusion of ice crystals on glass. Inside, winter lurks with the promise of spring in the shape of the egg’s surprise: a flower basket of platinum and gold with another 1,378 diamonds.
In 1994 it was auctioned for a Fabergé auction record of $5.6 million. It again set a record in 2002 when it was sold again – reportedly to the Emir of Qatar – for $9.6 million.
This time, the egg is expected to make upwards of £20 million (around $26.8 million).
That will set an auction record for Fabergé, but it is probably not the most valuable Fabergé egg ever made.
The Romanovs commissioned, bought, and gifted large numbers of these super-precious items. As Imperial Russia fell, the property of the ruling family was scattered. Many Fabergé eggs are in museums, with only estimated values known. The most reported sale is the $33 million private transaction that saw the Third Imperial Egg from 1887 change hands in 2014.
