A Rare Fabergé Egg Sells for a Record-Breaking £23 Million
The mother of Russia's last emperor, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, recently had her Fabergé egg sold for a staggering £22.9 million in London. This vintage, jewel-studded 'Winter egg' is one of the most lavish creations by Peter Carl Fabergé, the renowned Russian jeweller of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Fabergé's work, including this piece, was highly sought after by royal families across Russia, Denmark, and Britain.
The Winter egg is a masterpiece, featuring a rock crystal engraved with a frost design on the inside and rose-cut diamond-set platinum snowflake motifs on the outside. It was commissioned in 1913 by Emperor Nicholas II as an Easter gift for his mother. This sale sets a new world record for a Fabergé piece, surpassing the previous record of £8.9 million set in 2007 for the Rothschild egg.
The egg's history is as fascinating as its design. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, it was taken from St. Petersburg to the Kremlin armoury in Moscow. In the 1920s, the Soviet government began selling off art treasures from the Hermitage Museum and other collections, and the Winter egg was acquired by Wartski of London. It was later sold to a British collector for £1,500 in 1934. For two decades, between 1975 and 1994, the egg was believed to be missing, before being sold for £6.8 million at Christie's. Eight years later, in 2002, the auction house sold it again for £7.1 million.
Margo Oganesian, Christie's head of department for Fabergé and Russian works of art, expressed her honour in being entrusted with the sale of the exquisite Winter egg for the third time in Christie's history. She highlighted the egg's technical and artistic brilliance, noting that it is one of Fabergé's finest creations. With only a handful of imperial Easter eggs remaining in private hands, this sale presented an exceptional opportunity for collectors to acquire a work of unparalleled importance.
