Ice is forecast at Christie’s London this winter.
A collection of diamond-encrusted Fabergé collectibles, including one incredible rarity known as the Winter Egg, will go under the gavel at the auction house during Classic Week in December.
Nicholas II, the last reigning emperor of Russia, commissioned Fabergé to create the Winter Egg in 1913, presenting it as an Easter gift to his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. The Russian jeweler’s most celebrated female designer, Alma Theresia Pihl, hatched the ethereal concept while her uncle, workmaster Albert Holmström, executed the exquisite craftsmanship.
Finely carved in rock crystal, the egg features a frost design on the interior, diamond-set snowflakes on the exterior, and two matching diamond-set platinum borders concealing a hinge on the side. It, of course, opens to reveal a surprise: Suspended from a platinum hook is a double-handled trelliswork platinum basket set with rose-cut diamonds and filled with finely carved white-quartz wood anemones. Emerging from a bed of gold moss, each flower has a gold wire stem and stamens, delicately carved nephrite leaves, and a demantoid garnet at the center. The bottom of the basket is engraved with “Fabergé 1913.” There is also a cabochon moonstone dated 1913 on the exterior. The egg itself sits on a rock-crystal base, which is shaped like a block of melting ice and adorned with even more diamonds and platinum.
Fabergé produced just 50 Imperial Easter Eggs for the Romanov Dynasty. The majority are housed in museums, with only seven in private hands. Believed lost for almost two decades, between 1975 and 1994, the Winter Egg will be presented at auction for the third time on December 2. The estimate is available upon request, but Christie’s says it is “in excess of £20 million” ($26.9 million). The egg was originally commissioned for 24,600 roubles—an extraordinary amount for that time. It still commands quite a pretty penny, setting the world record for a Fabergé work not once but twice. It sold for a record 7.3 million Swiss francs (roughly $9.1 million) at a Christie’s auction in Geneva in 1994, then for a record $9.6 million at Christie’s New York in 2002. The auction record for Fabergé is held by the Rothschild Egg, which sold for £8.9 million (about $11.9 million) at Christie’s London in 2007. The Winter Egg could very well take that title come December, though.
The sale, aptly titled the Winter Egg and Important Works by Fabergé from a Princely Collection, comprises almost 50 lots of hardstone figures, animals, furniture, and decorative objects. The pieces have estimates ranging from £2,000 ($2,700) to £2 million ($2.7 million).
