Fabergé Egg Sells at Auction for $30.2 million

The rare Fabergé eggs are exquisite, jewel covered masterpieces created for the Russian Imperial family. A royal Easter tradition used the Fabergé eggs. The tradition started back in 1885 when Tsar Alexander III commissioned the first egg for his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna because she was homesick. She loved it so much that the Tsar ordered one every year. After the Tsar’s death, his son, Tsar Nicholas II, continued the tradition. He ordered two every year, and it became a tradition. Each egg holds a unique surprise. For example, a small flower basket. Each egg is extremely difficult to make. One egg takes about a year for a highly skilled craftsman and requires careful precision. The finest and most expensive egg is the Winter egg. It was carved from rock crystal to look like melting ice with frost on it. Over 4,500 gems adorned the egg. Its surprise is a little basket of white quartz and garnet flowers. One of Fabergé’s most celebrated designers was a woman named Alma Pihl, who designed both the Winter Egg and the Mosaic Egg. Ice crystals forming on her workshop window inspired her to create the snowflakes on the egg. Only 43 out of 50 eggs have been found so far. The whereabouts of the remaining seven are a mystery, making their potential discovery the art world’s greatest “Easter egg hunt”. The 1887 Third Imperial Egg, believed lost, was famously discovered by an American scrap metal dealer who bought it at a flea market for $14,000, intending to sell it for scrap gold. “Vacheron Constantin” on Google and found out it cost $33 million. Existing eggs are held in major museums, like the Kremlin Armoury Museum in Moscow and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.