Year delivered 1896 Surprise missing | Individual or institution Hillwood Museum | |
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The Twelve Monograms egg also known as the Alexander III Portraits egg is a jewelled Easter egg made under the supervision of the Russian jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé in 1896, for Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. It was presented by Nicholas II to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna.
Contents
The Twelve Monograms/ Alexander III Portraits Egg was the second Fabergé egg given by Tsar Nicholas to his mother.
The egg is one of four commemorating Alexander III; the other three are the missing Empire Nephrite (1902) and Alexander III Commemorative (1909) eggs and the Alexander III Equestrian egg (1910).
It is currently held in the Hillwood Museum in Washington, D.C. as part of the Marjorie Merriweather Post Collection.
Surprise
The surprise for this egg is missing. It is believed that this egg contained six miniatures of Emperor Alexander III painted on an ivory background and mounted with sapphires.
Craftsmanship
Each panel of the egg contains a Cyrillic cipher of Alexander III and Maria Fedorovna, set and crowned in diamonds, set against the dark blue enamel with a design of red gold, rose-cut diamonds, portrait diamonds and velvet lining. It is covered by six panels each divided by bands set with rose-cut diamonds and decorated with the Imperial crown and Imperial monograms (MF) "Maria Fyodorovna" and (AIII) "Alexander III". Each monogram appears six times, with Maria's monogram appearing on the top half of the egg and Alexander's appearing on the bottom.
For a long time this egg was thought to have been the 1892 gift for Maria and Alexander's 25th wedding anniversary. It was also incorrectly believed to be the Imperial Easter Egg of 1895.