Of the 50 Imperial eggs made by the House of Fabergé for the Russian royal family, the Winter Egg is perhaps the most renowned.
Commissioned by Emperor Nicholas II, the Winter Egg was presented to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, on Easter Day in 1913 – continuing the Romanov family tradition, instigated by the previous Emperor, Alexander III, of gifting Fabergé‘s exquisite eggs for the holiday. He was the first to present his wife, Maria Feodorovna, with an egg in 1885, and continued to do so every year until his death in 1894.
After Nicholas II was crowned, he continued in the grand tradition of giving these luxurious Easter eggs to both his wife, Empress Alexandra, and to his widowed mother. Each fabulous creation took a year to produce, with the next year’s egg usually ordered just after the latest one had been delivered.
Unique for its incredible delicacy, the Winter Egg was the astonishing work of a young woman in Fabergé’s studio, Alma Pihl, who had no formal training as a silversmith but was an exceptional artist, and hailed from a line of jewellers in Finland – some of her relatives also worked for Fabergé in St. Petersberg and Moscow.
Originally, Alma was employed to paint delicate watercolours of Fabergé’s sparkling creations, but in her free time, she dreamed up fabulous designs of her own, which were spotted by her uncle, Albert Holmström, a Finnish workmaster employed by Fabergé. Perceiving Alma’s extraordinary talents lay outside of her current situation, he took her into his own studio and some of her concepts were actually put into production for Fabergé. Holmström later crafted the Winter Egg for Fabergé, using one of Alma’s designs.
Inspired by icy frost patterns, the Winter Egg features a shell and based carved from clear rock crystal – an unusual choice, given that Faberge’s ornate eggs were primarily crafted from gold and adorned with colourful enamel and precious gemstones. Its frozen fractals have been carefully hand-engraved on the inside, while its base has been carved to resemble a block of melting ice. On the outside, the Winter Egg boasts platinum snowflake motifs set with over 4,000 rose-cut diamonds.
In keeping with Fabergé’s signature style, the Winter Egg features a hidden ‘surprise’: a tiny posy of wood anemones, all made from white quartz and embellished with demantoid garnet heads, yellow gold stamens, and green nephrite leaves. These are arranged in platinum basket, decorated with sparkling diamonds.
When Nicholas II abdicated in 1917, most of his family’s Imperial eggs were transferred to the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow. After the October Revolution, it was sold off by Russia’s new Communist rulers to raise funds and came into the hands of an English collector. In 1994, it was sold at Christie’s in Geneva, where it fetched $5.4 million, a world record at the time. Eight years later, it was sold at Christie’s in New York, raising $9.6 million, another world record at the time for an object by Fabergé.
The Winter Egg’s incredible delicacy, poignancy and rarity made it a dazzling highlight of a Christie’s London sale entitled ‘The Winter Egg and Important Works by Fabergé from a Princely Collection’ on 2 December. With most of the surviving 43 Fabergé eggs now housed in museums (the rest have either been lost or destroyed), it was one of the very last in private hands and, as the hammer came down, it broke its own record at the most expensive work by the Russian jeweller to ever appear at auction, selling for a whopping $30.2 million (£22.9 million).
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