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 Winterl Egg1913 Gift Nicholas II to Maria Fyodorovna Height: 10,2 cm |
Faberge eggs are the most famous jewelled eggs made by Peter Carl Faberge and his assistants between 1885 and 1917. In 1883 the Russian Czar, Alexander, commissioned Faberge to make a special Easter gift for his wife, the Empress Marie.
The Faberge eggs are made of precious metals or hard stones decorated with combinations of enamel and gem stones. The term "Faberge Egg" has become a synonym of luxury and the eggs are regarded as masterpieces of the jeweler's art.
The history of the Winter Egg is one of the best documented of all Imperial Easter Eggs. Not only do we know the workmaster, the designer and even perhaps the stone carver, but we also know the egg's cost in 1913. The original Faberge bill in the Russian State Archives records the purchase of the Winter Egg by the Tsar for 24,600 rubles, the highest price ever paid for a Imperial Easter Egg. The bill also details the composition of the Egg: the body set with 1,300 rose-diamonds, the borders with 360 brilliants, and the small basket with 1,378 rose-diamonds.
The flower compositions created by Faberge, such as the basket of spring flowers in the Winter Egg, stand out among some of the most technically demanding works produced by the firm. Spring flowers were a particularly celebrated theme among the Russian elite, as a symbol of happiness and renewed hope after long and pitiless winters.
The 1913 Winter Egg is made of rock crystal, platinum, rose-cut diamonds, brilliant diamonds and moonstone.The miniature basket is made of platinum, gold, white quartz, nephrite and demantoid green garnets. The Egg is set on a rock crystal base formed as a block of melting ice, applied with platinum-mounted rose-cut diamond rivulets. The hinged, rock-crystal egg is detachable and is held vertically above by a pin, with rose-diamond set platinum borders, graduated around the hinge and enclosing in the top a cabochon moonstone painted on the reverse with the date 1913, the thinly carved transparent body of the Egg finely engraved on the interior to simulate ice crystals, the outside further engraved and applied in carved channels with similar rose-diamond set platinum motifs, opening vertically. The surprise is a platinum double-handled trellis work basket, set with rose-diamonds and full of wood anemones, suspended from a platinum hook, each flower realistically carved from a single piece of white quartz with gold wire stem and stamens, the center set with a demantoid garnet, some carved half open or in a bud, the leaves delicately carved in nephrite, emerging from a bed of gold moss, the base of the basket engraved in Roman letters "Faberge 1913".
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