LONDON: Faberge's "Winter Egg" from the collection of Czar Nicholas II of Russia was auctioned in London for for 19.5 milli...
LONDON: Faberge's "Winter Egg" from the collection of Czar Nicholas II of Russia was auctioned in London for for 19.5 million pounds (25.7 million dollars), setting a record high for this type of jewelry, auctioneer Yu-Ge Wang announced.
"Nineteen million five hundred thousand pounds. Sold!" she said. Christie's added that the buyer will pay 22.9 million pounds (30.2 million dollars), including commission. Bidding started at 17 million pounds (22.4 million dollars).
Created for the Russian imperial family for Easter 1913, the piece was designed by Alma Pihl, a young jeweler and the daughter of one of Carl Faberge’s leading craftsmen. The Winter Egg's body is made of rock crystal and is decorated with carvings that imitate frost crystals. Adorned with more than 4,000 diamonds, the piece stands on a crystal base that looks like melting ice. Inside the egg is a basket containing a bouquet of snowdrops made of quartz and jadeite. Nicholas II gave the egg as a present to his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna.
Faberge egg’s fate
After the October Revolution, a London dealer purchased the egg in the 1920s for 450 pounds, and it was resold several times. The Winter Egg was considered lost for a long time until it "surfaced" at a Christie's auction in Geneva in 1994. There, it sold for 5.587 million dollars. In 2002, it sold for a world record 9.58 million dollars at an auction in New York. Forbes previously reported that this time the egg was put up for auction by the heirs of Qatari Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al Thani, who bought it in 2002.
Peter Carl Faberge inherited his father's jewelry workshop in St. Petersburg, and under his management, it began receiving orders from the imperial family. The first of the famous Faberge eggs, the jewelled Easter eggs that are the family’s claim to fame, was created by order of Alexander III. Following the 1917 Revolution, all Faberge factories and stores were nationalized. By that time, the workshop had produced 54 imperial Easter eggs and 17 eggs for private clients. The total number of jewelry items created by Faberge and his craftsmen exceeded 150,000.
The Soviet authorities sold a significant portion of Faberge's imperial Easter eggs abroad in the 1930s. The largest collections are currently on display at the Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg, which opened in 2013 and has 15 eggs, including 11 imperial ones purchased by businessman Viktor Vekselberg from foreign collectors, and at the Armory Chamber in Moscow (10). The most expensive Faberge Easter egg was previously the Rothschild egg, sold for 18.5 million dollars at Christie's auction in 2007.
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