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In 1885 Tsar Alexander III commissioned the House of Fabergé to make an Easter Egg as a gift for his wife, the Empress Maria Fedorovna. Its ‘shell’ is enamelled on gold to represent a normal hen’s egg. This pulls apart to reveal a gold yolk, which in turn opens to produce a gold chicken that also opens to reveal a replica of the Imperial Crown from which a miniature ruby egg was suspended. Although the Crown and the miniature egg have been lost, the rest of the Hen Egg as it is known is now in the collection of Victor Vekselberg.

 
The Peter The Great Egg (1903)

The tradition of the Tsar giving his Empress a surprise Easter Egg by Carl Fabergé continued. From 1887 it appears that Carl Fabergé was given complete freedom as to the design of the Imperial Easter Eggs as they became more elaborate. According to the Fabergé Family tradition, not even the Tsar knew what egg form they would take: the only stipulation was that each one should contain a surprise.

The Memory of Azov Egg

The House of Fabergé completed 54 Imperial Eggs for Alexander III to present to his Empress and for Nicholas II to present to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna and his wife the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna[3]. Of these, 42 have survived. The Eggs for 1917 were never completed, but have been discovered in recent years.

Only 69 Originals were made

A Fabergé egg is any one of sixty-nine jewelled eggs made by Peter Carl Fabergé and his assistants between 1885 and 1917. Fifty Imperial Fabergé Easter eggs were made and presented by Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II of Russia. A further two eggs were planned but not delivered, the Constellation and Karelian Birch eggs of 1917. Seven of the eggs were made for the Kelch family of Moscow.

Alexander III Equestrian Egg

The eggs are made of precious metals or hard stones decorated with combinations of enamel and gem stones. The term “Fabergé Egg” has become a synonym of luxury and the eggs are regarded as masterpieces of the jeweler’s art.

History of the World’s Most Famous Eggs

Fabergé and his goldsmiths designed and constructed the first egg in 1885. It was commissioned by Tsar Alexander III of Russia as an Easter surprise for his wife Maria Fyodorovna. In the outside it looked like a simple egg of white enamelled gold, but it opened up to reveal a golden yolk. The yolk itself had a golden hen inside it, which in turn had a tiny crown with a ruby hanging inside, reminiscent of the matryoshka nesting dolls.

The Moscow Kremlin Egg (1906)

Empress Maria was so delighted by this gift that Alexander appointed Fabergé a “Court Supplier” and commissioned an Easter gift each year thereafter, stipulating only that it be unique and contain a surprise. His son, Nicholas II of Russia continued the tradition, annually presenting an egg each spring to his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna as well as his then-widowed mother.

The Imperical Coronation Egg

From 1885, the eggs were produced almost every year. Once an initial design was approved, the work was carried out by an entire team of artisans under Peter Carl Fabergé, among them Michael Perkhin, Henrik Wigström and Erik August Kollin. The Imperial eggs enjoyed such fame that Fabergé made some 15 known eggs for private clients. Among them is a series of 7 eggs made for the industrialist Alexander Kelch. In addition, 8 eggs were made. They are not as extravagant as the Imperial eggs, and are not as original, often repeating designs that originated with the Imperial eggs.

Only 61 remaining ….

Of the 69 known Fabergé eggs, only 61 have survived to the present day. The vast majority of them are stored in public museums, with the greatest number, 30, in Russia. There are 54 known Imperial eggs. Only 46 have survived.  Of the lost eight Imperial eggs, photographs only exist of two, the 1903 Royal Danish, and the 1909 Alexander III Commemorative eggs.
Only one, 1916’s Order of St. George egg, left Bolshevik Russia with its original recipient, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. The rest remained in Petrograd.

About the Value of Fabergé Eggs

Following the Russian Revolution, the House of Fabergé was nationalized by the Bolsheviks, and the Fabergé family fled to Switzerland, where Peter Carl Fabergé died in 1920. The Romanov palaces were ransacked and their treasures moved on order of Vladimir Lenin to the Kremlin Armoury. In a bid to acquire more foreign currency, Joseph Stalin had many of the eggs sold in 1927, after their value had been appraised by Agathon Fabergé. Between 1930 and 1933 fourteen Imperial eggs left Russia. Many of the eggs were sold to Armand Hammer, president of Occidental Petroleum and a personal friend of Lenin, whose father was founder of the United States Communist party, and Emanuel Snowman of the London antique dealers Wartski.

The Bouquet of Lilies Clock Egg

After the collection in the Kremlin Armoury, the largest gathering of Fabergé eggs was assembled by Malcolm Forbes, and displayed in New York City. Totalling 9 eggs, and approximately 180 other faberge objects, the collection was put up for auction at Sotheby’s in February 2004 by Forbes heirs. Before the auction even began the Forbes collection was purchased in its entirety by the oligarch Victor Vekselberg for a sum estimated between $90 and $120 million. The imperial eggs in the collection included the first egg, the Hen Egg and the famed Coronation Egg (featured in the 2004 film Ocean’s 12.)

In November 2007, a Fabergé clock, named by Christie’s auction house as the ‘Rothschild Egg’ sold at auction for £8.9 million. The price achieved set two records for auction: it is the most expensive timepiece ever sold at auction and the most expensive Russian object , including previous Faberge Eggs, ever sold at auction, surpassing the $9.6 million sale of the 1913 Winter egg in 2002.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faberg%C3%A9_egg)

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