Perhaps the most sumptuous Easter gift ever given is to be auctioned in New York next month. Presented by Tsar Nicholas II to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna in 1913, the exquisite Faberge Winter Egg was the rarest and most expensive produced by the imperial jeweller.
The egg is made of transparent rock crystal delicately engraved on the inside to recreate the effect of ice crystals, and contains a “surprise”. Its exterior is encrusted with 3,000 diamonds set in platinum, and the whole thing rests on a detachable rock crystal base carved to represent a block of melting ice set with rose diamond rivulets.
Inside, the hidden surprise is a delicate trelliswork basket fashioned in platinum and filled with a tiny bouquet of flowers carved from white quartz and set with green garnet hearts.
The Winter theme for the jewelled gift came from Faberge designer Alma Pihl. She had been inspired by the sight of sunlight shining through the frosty windows of the workshop for a series of pieces undertaken immediately prior to the imperial egg commission.
Between 1885 and 1916 Faberge created a total of 50 eggs for Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II. Of these, fewer than a dozen have been offered at auction. The Winter Egg was previously sold to an anonymous collector in 1994 for $5.6 million, and is expected to raise somewhere between $4 and $6 million when it goes under the hammer at Christie’s New York office on April 19.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
