Fabergé Imperial Winter Egg poised to smash auction record

The Imperial Winter Egg, considered one of Fabergé’s finest creations for the Russian imperial family, could set a record for the third time with a price estimate of more than $26 million.

The Winter Egg, composed of a rock crystal shell, platinum edging and tracework, and 4,500 diamonds, was commissioned in 1913 by Tsar Nicholas II as an Easter gift for his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, just five years before the Tsar, his wife and their children were executed by the Bolsheviks.

Carved from rock crystal and embellished with platinum snowflake motifs set with rose-cut diamonds, the Winter Egg houses a delicate surprise: an exquisitely crafted bouquet of wood anemones, the first flowers to appear after Russia’s harsh winter.

The blossoms are fashioned from white quartz with gold wire stems and demantoid garnets at their centres, while the leaves are carved in nephrite.

The egg’s ownership history is as dramatic as its design. It was purchased in the 1920s by a London dealer for just £450, after the cash-strapped Soviet authorities began selling off imperial treasures. It later vanished from public view for around twenty years before resurfacing at a Christie’s sale in 1994, where it fetched more than 7 million Swiss francs (around $5.6 million at the time). It changed hands again in 2002 for $9.6 million.

Christie’s now expects the piece to surpass the current Fabergé record: the $18.5 million paid in 2007 for an egg created for the Rothschild banking family.

The Winter Egg will be offered on December 2 as the centrepiece of “The Winter Egg and Important Works by Fabergé from a Princely Collection”, part of Christie’s “Classic Week” series of auctions.