The Winter Egg is a

Fabergé egg A Fabergé egg (russian: link=no, яйцо Фаберже́, translit=yaytso Faberzhe) is a jewelled egg created by the jewellery firm House of Fabergé, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. As many as 69 were created, of which 57 survive today. Virtua ...

, one of a series of fifty-two jewelled

Easter egg Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tr ...

s created by Russian jeweler

Peter Carl Fabergé Peter Carl Fabergé, also known as Karl Gustavovich Fabergé (russian: Карл Гу́ставович Фаберже́, ''Karl Gustavovich Faberzhe''; 30 May 1846 – 24 September 1920), was a Russian jeweller best known for the famous Faberg� ...

. It was an Easter 1913 gift for

Tsarina Tsarina or tsaritsa (also spelled ''csarina'' or ''csaricsa'', ''tzarina'' or ''tzaritza'', or ''czarina'' or ''czaricza''; bg, царица, tsaritsa; sr, / ; russian: царица, tsaritsa) is the title of a female autocratic ruler (mon ...

Maria Feodorovna from

Tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...

Nicholas II, who had a standing order of two Easter eggs every year, one for his mother and one for his wife. It was designed by Alma Pihl. The price in 1913 was 24,700 rubles, the most expensive Easter egg ever made. The egg left Russia after the Revolution, and ended up in the collection of Mr. Brian Ledbrooke, Esq. It was first sold at auction in 1994 at Christie's in Geneva for $5.6 million, the world record at that time for a Faberge item sold at auction. The egg sold for US$9.6 million in an auction at Christie's in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 2002. It was reported that the buyer was

Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Hamad bin Abdullah bin Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani ( ar, حمد بن خليفة الثاني; born 1 January 1952) is a member of the ruling Al Thani Qatari royal family. He was the ruling Emir of Qatar from 1995 ...

, the Emir of Qatar.

Design

The exterior of the egg resembles frost and ice crystals formed on clear glass. It is studded with 1,660

diamond Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...

s, and is made from

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Pla ...

, and

orthoclase Orthoclase, or orthoclase feldspar ( endmember formula K Al Si3 O8), is an important tectosilicate mineral which forms igneous rock. The name is from the Ancient Greek for "straight fracture," because its two cleavage planes are at right angles ...

. The miniature surprise flower basket is studded with 1,378 diamonds and is made from platinum and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

, while the wood anemones are made of white quartz and the leaves are made of demantoid. The flowers lie in gold moss. The egg is high.

References

Sources

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External links

Mieks Fabergé Eggs - 1913 Winter Egg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Winter (Faberge egg) Imperial Fabergé eggs 1913 works