What the Winter Egg Is
- It’s a 1913 Imperial Fabergé Egg, commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II as an Easter gift for his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna.
- Made from rock crystal with platinum and rose cut diamond snowflake motifs, it opens to reveal a platinum basket of carved quartz flowers symbolizing the arrival of spring.
- Designed by Alma Pihl, one of the few female designers at Fabergé’s St. Petersburg workshop.
- Of the 50 Imperial Eggs ever made, only seven are privately owned today making this incredibly rare.
The luxury object is one of 50 bejeweled Easter eggs created by the House of Faberge for the Romanov Russia’s imperial family. Known as the Winter Egg, it was crafted for the czar Nicholas II to give his mother in 1913, four years before he abdicated his throne amid the tumult of the Russian Revolution. Tuesday’s record breaking sale at Christie’s London marked the Winter Egg’s third time going under the hammer. It was first sold by Christie’s in 1994 for 7.3 million Swiss francs, setting what was then a world record for a Faberge item. Eight years later, in 2002, the egg broke its own record when it fetched 9.6 million at a Christie’s auction in New York City.
Carved from rock crystal, the Winter Egg is a poetic meditation on the passage from winter to spring. Its translucent shell is adorned with platinum snowflakes set with rose cut diamonds, while inside a hanging platinum basket cradles a bouquet of white quartz flowers. The egg rests on a rock crystal base sculpted to resemble melting ice, evoking renewal and rebirth. As Christie’s noted in an October statement, the piece captures the idea of resurrection, symbolizing the shift from winter’s severity to the promise of spring. The Winter Egg is especially rare for another reason: it was designed by Alma Phil, one of the few female designers to work for Faberge. Born into a distinguished Finnish family of jewelers, Pihl initially produced life size watercolor records of Faberge creations. In her spare time, however, she sketched original designs of her own. These caught the eye of her uncle, Albert Stromboli, a master craftsman at the firm, who brought several of them into production. Alongside the Winter Egg, Phil designed the Mosaic Egg, presented by Nicholas II to his wife in 1914. Featuring a platinum lattice set with diamonds, rubies and other gemstones, the Mosaic Egg is now part of the British royal collection. Despite their legendary status, Faberge eggs often defy popular expectations. People imagine something the size of the Empire State Building, with diamonds the size of footballs Faberge expert Rankine McCarthy told CNN in 2015. In reality, he said, it’s a very delicate and small object and people are always surprised by just how intimate these eggs really are.
Russia’s last imperial family lived, as McCarthy put it, at such a height of luxury that you couldn’t really excite them with anything of intrinsic value. What mattered instead was artistry. It was always about the craftsmanship, he said the ingenuity, refinement and technical brilliance that distinguished Faberge's creations from mere displays of wealth. That gilded world came to an abrupt end with the Russian Revolution. After seizing power, the Bolsheviks confiscated many of the Romanov's’ Faberge eggs, dismissing them as almost certainly the most reprehensible symbols of the past, as Apollo magazine’s Dignity Wade Adam wrote in 2014. In the decades that followed, the new communist government quietly sold many of the eggs abroad, dispersing imperial treasures to overseas collectors. The Winter Egg’s own journey reflects this turbulent history. According to Christie’s, it was purchased by a London buyer for just 450 sometime between 1929 and 1933. The egg later passed through the hands of several English collectors before disappearing from public view in 1975. It would not resurface until 1994, when it re emerged at auction, reclaiming its place as one of the most extraordinary surviving works of Faberge.
