Fabergé egg

History

The first Fabergé egg was crafted for Tsar Alexander III, who had decided to give his wife, the Empress Maria Fedorovna, an Easter Egg in 1885, possibly to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their betrothal. It is believed that the Tsar's inspiration for the piece was an egg owned by the Empress’s aunt, Princess Vilhelmine Marie of Denmark, which had captivated Maria’s imagination in her childhood. Known as the Hen Egg, the first Fabergé egg is crafted from gold. Its opaque white enameled "shell" opens to reveal its first surprise, a matte yellow-gold yolk. This in turn opens to reveal a multicolored gold hen that also opens. The hen contained a minute diamond replica of the imperial crown from which a small ruby pendant was suspended, but these last two elements have been lost.

Empress Maria was so delighted by the gift that Alexander appointed Fabergé a "goldsmith by special appointment to the Imperial Crown" and commissioned another egg the next year. After that, Peter Carl Fabergé was apparently given complete freedom for the design of future imperial Easter eggs, and their designs became more elaborate. According to Fabergé family lore, not even the Tsar knew what form they would take—the only requirements were that each contain a surprise, and that each be unique. Once Fabergé had approved an initial design, the work was carried out by a team of craftsmen, among them Michael Perkhin, Henrik Wigström and Erik August Kollin.

After Alexander III's death on November 1, 1894, his son Nicholas II presented a Fabergé egg to both his wife, Alexandra Fedorovna, and his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna. Records have shown that of the 50 Imperial Easter eggs, 20 were given to the former and 30 to the latter. Eggs were made each year except 1904 and 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War.

The Imperial eggs enjoyed great fame, and Fabergé was commissioned to make similar eggs for a few private clients, including the Duchess of Marlborough, the Rothschild family and the Yusupovs. Fabergé was also commissioned to make twelve eggs for the industrialist Alexander Kelch, though only seven appear to have been completed.

List of Fabergé Tsar Imperial Easter eggs

Below is a chronology of the eggs made for the imperial family. The dating of the eggs has evolved over time. An earlier chronology dated the Blue Serpent Clock Egg to 1887 and identified the egg of 1895 as the Twelve Monograms egg. The discovery of the previously lost Third Imperial Easter Egg confirms the chronology below.

List of the Kelch eggs

Faberge was also commissioned to make twelve eggs for Alexander Ferdinandovich Kelch, a Siberian gold mine industrialist, as gifts for his wife Barbara (Varvara) Kelch-Bazanova. Though still "Faberbge eggs" by virtue of having been produced by his workshop, these eggs were not as elaborate as the Imperial eggs, and were not unique in design. Most are copies of other eggs.

Location of eggs

Of the 65 known Fabergé eggs, 57 have survived to the present day. Ten of the Imperial Easter eggs are displayed at Moscow's Kremlin Armory Museum. Of the 50 known Imperial eggs, 43 have survived, and there are photographs of three of the seven lost eggs: the 1903 Royal Danish egg, the 1909 Alexander III Commemorative egg, and the Nécessaire Egg of 1889. The previously lost Third Imperial Easter Egg of 1887 has since been found in the USA and bought by Wartski for a private collector.

After the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks nationalized the House of Fabergé, and the Fabergé family fled to Switzerland, where Peter Carl Fabergé died in 1920. The Imperial Family's palaces were ransacked and their treasures moved to the Kremlin Armoury on order of Vladimir Lenin.

In a bid to acquire more foreign currency, Joseph Stalin had many of the eggs sold in 1927, after their value had been appraised by Agathon Fabergé. Between 1930 and 1933, 14 Imperial eggs left Russia. Many of the eggs were sold to Armand Hammer (president of Occidental Petroleum and a personal friend of Lenin, whose father was founder of the United States Communist party) and to Emanuel Snowman of the London antique dealers Wartski.

After the collection in the Kremlin Armoury, the largest gathering of Fabergé eggs was assembled by Malcolm Forbes, and displayed in New York City. Totaling nine eggs, and approximately 180 other Fabergé objects, the collection was to be put up for auction at Sotheby's in February 2004 by Forbes' heirs. However, before the auction began, the collection was purchased in its entirety by the oligarch Victor Vekselberg. In a 2013 BBC Four documentary, Vekselberg revealed he had spent just over $100 Million purchasing the nine Fabergé eggs. He claims never to have displayed them in his home, saying he bought them as they are important to Russian history and culture, and he believed them to be the best jewelry art in the world. In the same BBC documentary Vekselberg revealed he plans to open a museum that will display the eggs in his collection, which is built as a private museum Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia on November 19, 2013.

In November 2007, a Fabergé clock, named by Christie's auction house the Rothschild egg, sold at auction for £8.9 million (including commission). The price achieved by the egg set three auction records: it is the most expensive timepiece, Russian object, and Fabergé object ever sold at auction, surpassing the $9.6 million sale of the 1913 Winter egg in 2002.

In 1989, as part of the San Diego Arts Festival, 26 Faberge eggs were loaned for display at the San Diego Museum of Art, the largest exhibition of Faberge eggs anywhere since the Russian Revolution. The eggs included eight from the Kremlin, nine from the Forbes collection, three from the New Orleans Museum of Art, two from the Royal Collection one from the Cleveland Museum of Art and three from private collections.

In popular culture

Fabergé eggs have become symbols of the splendour, power and wealth of the Romanov dynasty and the Russian Empire, priceless treasures to hunt, steal, etc. As such, they have been part of the plot in several films and television series, such as Octopussy (1983), Love Among Thieves (1987), Murder She Wrote episode "An Egg to Die For" (1994), Case Closed: The Last Wizard of the Century (1999), The Order (2001), Ocean's Twelve (2004), The Simpsons episodes "'Round Springfield" (1995) and "The Last of the Red Hat Mamas" (2005), the Family Guy episode "Stu and Stewie's Excellent Adventure" (2006), Thick as Thieves (2009), American Dad! episode "A Jones for a Smith" (2010), The Intouchables (2011), Hustle episode "Eat Yourself Slender" (2012), Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated episode "The House of the Nightmare Witch" (2012), Imperial Eight (2015), Person of Interest episode "Search and Destroy" (2015), etc. In Danielle Steele's "Zoya", a Fabergé egg is a keepsake of the last two remaining members of a noble family. The Lilies of the Valley egg was depicted in an episode of the British crime drama, Peaky Blinders, season 3 episode 5 (2016). The digital card game Cabals: Magic & Battle Cards features Fabergé egg as a collectable card.