A diamond-studded crystal Faberg\u00e9 egg that once belonged to Russia’s imperial family has sold for a record \u00a322.9m ($30.2m) in London.<\/p>\n
The Winter Egg – considered one of the legendary jeweller’s most beautiful creations – was bought by an anonymous bidder on Tuesday, Christie’s auction house said.<\/p>\n
It is decorated with 4,500 diamonds was commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II in 1913 as a present to his mother.<\/p>\n
The previous record for a Faberg\u00e9 egg was \u00a38.9m paid at auction in 2007.<\/p>\n
“Today’s result sets a new world auction record for a work by Faberg\u00e9, reaffirming the enduring significance of this masterpiece,” Christie’s Margo Oganesian was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
The 8.2cm high (3.2in) egg was created by Carl Faberg\u00e9, based on the design of Alma Theresia Pihl, one of only two female workmasters at St Petersburg’s jewellery company.<\/p>\n
It was carved from rock crystal and decorated with rose-cut diamonds, as well as platinum snowflake motifs. <\/p>\n
The egg opens up to reveal a tiny basket of white quartz flowers inside. <\/p>\n
The Faberg\u00e9 house only ever made 50 eggs for Russia’s imperial Romanov family, and the Imperial Winter Egg is one of just seven left in private hands. <\/p>\n
The others are either missing or owned by institutions or museums.<\/p>\n
The eggs were made from 1885 until Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate in 1917.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A diamond-studded crystal Faberg\u00e9 egg that once belonged to Russia’s imperial family has sold for a record \u00a322.9m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-608825","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\/115653767567108085","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608825","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=608825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}