The Winter Egg, which was commissioned by Emperor Nicholas II in 1913 as a gift for his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, is described as one of the most lavish of Faberge\u2019s imperial creations.<\/p>\n
It is finely carved in rock crystal and engraved on the interior with a frost design, while the exterior is applied with rose-cut diamond-set platinum snowflake motifs.<\/p>\n
It sold on Tuesday for \u00a322,895,000, London auction house Christie\u2019s said, beating the previous world auction record for a work by Faberge by more than \u00a313 million.<\/p>\n
The old record was set in 2007 when the Rothschild Egg fetched \u00a38.9 million.<\/p>\n
Christie\u2019s said it is the third time the Winter Egg has set a record price for a Faberge piece.<\/p>\n
Margo Oganesian, Christie\u2019s head of department for Faberge and Russian works of art, said: \u201cChristie\u2019s is honoured to have been entrusted with the sale of the exquisite Winter Egg by Faberge for the third time in our history.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s result sets a new world auction record for a work by Faberge, reaffirming the enduring significance of this masterpiece and celebrating the rarity and brilliance of what is widely regarded as one of Faberge\u2019s finest creations, both technically and artistically.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith only a handful of imperial Easter eggs remaining in private hands, this was an exceptional and historic opportunity for collectors to acquire a work of unparalleled importance.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the Russian Revolution in 1917, it was transferred from St Petersburg to the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow along with many other valuable possessions of the royal family.<\/p>\n
In the 1920s the Soviet government began selling off art treasures from the Hermitage Museum and other collections, often for only a fraction of their value.<\/p>\n
The Winter Egg was acquired by antiques dealer Wartski of London for \u00a3450, then sold to a British collector in 1934 for \u00a31,500, before later being sold on to another.<\/p>\n
It was believed lost for two decades from 1975 until 1994, when it was sold at Christie\u2019s for a world record 7,263,500 Swiss francs (\u00a36.8 million).<\/p>\n
In 2002 it was again sold by Christie\u2019s for another world record of 9,579,000 US dollars (\u00a37.1 million).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Winter Egg, which was commissioned by Emperor Nicholas II in 1913 as a gift for his mother,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-608536","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115653008760714057","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}