A rare crystal and diamond egg made by Fabergé for the Russian imperial family It sold for £22.9 million (more than $30 million), setting a new art market record. The piece, known as ““Winter Egg”was auctioned this Tuesday in London.
The company Christie’s He explained that it is one of the seven imperial Fabergé eggs that remain in private hands and compared it, due to its status and uniqueness, to the “Mona Lisa.”
Manufactured in 1913, The egg measures 10 centimeters high and is made of finely carved rock crystal.decorated with a snowflake pattern in platinum and set with about 4,500 tiny diamonds.
Inside it is a removable basket with quartz flowers and gems that symbolize the arrival of spring.one of the characteristic features of these creations: they always hid a surprise.
The price reached far exceeded the US$18.5 million paid in 2007, also at Christie’s, for another egg designed for the Rothschild family. For specialists, the sum confirms the exceptional status of these pieces created by Peter Carl Fabergé and his workshop between 1885 and 1917, a period in which more than fifty imperial eggs were made, each one with a unique design. The tradition began under Tsar Alexander III and continued with his successor, Nicholas II, who often gave them to his wife and mother at Easter.
In the case of the Winter Egg, Nicholas II commissioned it in 1913 as a gift to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. It was one of two eggs designed by Alma Pihl, a young jeweler from the Fabergé workshop whose other work of this type is today part of the collection of the British royal family.
The piece survived the fall of the Romanov dynasty, which ruled Russia for three centuries until the 1917 revolution. Nicholas II and his family were executed the following year, in 1918.
After the revolution, the egg was purchased for only 450 pounds (about $600) by a London dealer in the 1920s, when the Soviet government began parting with valuables.
From there it passed through several private collections and for decades it was believed lost. until it reappeared at a Christie’s auction in 1994, where it was sold for more than seven million Swiss francs. (about US$5.6 million at that time). It was sold again in 2002 for $9.6 million.
Christie’s recalled that every time this egg came on the market marked a new record for a Fabergé piece, confirming its historical and artistic relevance. According to the auction house, 43 imperial eggs are preserved -most in museums-, which reinforces the rarity of the few specimens that still circulate.
With information from the Associated Press
