Gold, marble, precious stone eggs

An ancient tradition that has very distant origins, the Easter icon par excellence, the symbol of the birth of a new life.

Gold, marble, precious stone eggs … objects of art that have gone down in history and still continue to fascinate today.
The great master who deserves credit for having transformed the humble egg into a magnificent art object was Peter Carl Fabergé in the late 19th century.

The first egg was commissioned by Tsar Alexander III in 1885 as an Easter present for his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna.
The original Fabergé egg was made of solid gold and coated with white enamel to make it appear as realistic as possible.
Inside it a golden egg yolk which in turn contained a golden hen with ruby ​​eyes, and a mini crown of gold and imperial diamonds and a ruby ​​pendant inside the tail.

The egg delighted the Empress so much that from then on, the Tsar ordered Fabergé to make an egg for each Easter.

Thus between 1885 and 1917 52 of these Easter eggs were made of gold, precious stones and precious materials.

The most expensive egg ever sold at auction is that of the Rothschild family.
Created in 1902 as an engagement gift, the pink colored egg has a clock on the facade and a rooster set with diamonds protrudes from the top of the egg every hour. In 2007 it was sold for 16.5 million dollars to Alexander Ivanov, an art collector and director of the Russian National Museum.
It is currently exhibited at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Of the 50 Fabergé eggs made for the Russian imperial family, only 43 have been located, 7 of which designs exist, still remain hidden.