Fabergé egg · Lablypedia

The eggs were commissioned for the Russian tsar Alexander III (10 eggs) and tsar Nicholas II (40 eggs) as Easter gifts for Alexander's wife and Nicholas's mother, Empress Maria Feodorovna, and Nicholas's wife Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna. Fabergé eggs are worth large sums of money and have become symbols of opulence.

Two more Fabergé Easter Imperial eggs (bringing the total to 52) were designed but were not delivered. One egg, known as the Karelian Birch Egg, has sketches but is not confirmed to have actually been made, and the other, the Blue Tsesarevich Constellation Egg, was only partially completed, due to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In 2011, Theo Fabergé, grandson of Peter Carl Fabergé, created a series of eggs as part of the St. Petersburg Collection.

Contemporary Fabergé eggs are made by Fabergé UK Limited, the reestablished jewellery house, which maintains a Fabergé Heritage Council involving Fabergé family members.

History

The House of Fabergé was founded by the goldsmith Gustav Fabergé in 1842 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and the eggs were commissioned by the Russian tsar after Peter Carl Fabergé took the helm, in 1882.

For Easter in 1883, before his coronation, Alexander III and Maria Feodorovna were given eggs, one of which contained a silver dagger and two skulls. The egg came with messages, including "Christ is risen" and "You may crush us—but we Nihilists shall rise again!"

Prior to Easter 1885, Alexander III's brother Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich suggested that Peter Carl Fabergé create a jewelled egg. This type of egg is believed to have been inspired by an ivory hen egg made for the Danish Royal Collection in the 18th century. Known as the Hen Egg, it had a 65 mm (2.5 in) outer enamel shell and a golden band around the middle. The egg opens to reveal a golden "yolk" within, which in turn opens to expose a golden hen sitting on golden straw. Inside the hen lies a miniature diamond replica of the imperial crown and a ruby pendant, though these two elements have been lost. The egg cost 4,151 rubles. Six weeks later, the emperor made Fabergé the supplier to the imperial court, following which, the egg designs became more elaborate. Once Fabergé had approved an initial design, the work was carried out by a team of craftsmen, among them Michael Perkhin, Henrik Wigström, and Erik August Kollin.

After Alexander III's death on 1 November 1894, his son, Nicholas II, presented a Fabergé egg to both his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, and his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. Records have shown that of the 50 Imperial Easter eggs, 20 were given to the former and 30 to the latter. Eggs were made each year except 1904 and 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War.

The imperial eggs enjoyed great fame. Fabergé was commissioned to make similar eggs for a few private clients, including the Duchess of Marlborough, the Rothschild family, and the Yusupovs. He was also commissioned to make twelve eggs for the industrialist Alexander Kelch, though only seven appear to have been completed. Following the revolution and the nationalisation of the Fabergé workshop in Saint Petersburg by the Bolsheviks in 1918, the Fabergé family left Russia. Their trademark was sold several times, and different companies retailed merchandise using the Fabergé name. From 1998 to 2009, the Victor Mayer jewellery company produced Fabergé eggs under Unilever's license.

5 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

Art of surprise

Every Fabergé egg embodied a story and a surprise. The Hen Egg (1885) opened to reveal a golden egg and hen. The Rosebud Egg (1895) was the first egg made for Alexandra Fedorovna, wife of Tsar Nicholas II, and featured a yellow rose, believed to be the most noble colour, a miniature jewelled crown, and a ruby pendant (both missing).

The Danish Palace Egg (1890) contained a folding ten-panel screen depicting the Danish Imperial yacht Polar Star, Amaliensborg Palace, the estate of Hvidøre, Fredensborg Palace, Bernsdorff Castle, Kronberg Castle, two views of Cottage Palace in Copenhagen, and Catching Palace, St Petersburg.

Techniques such as guilloché enamelling were introduced by Fabergé, and quality was overseen and approved by Peter Carl himself, or in his absence, by his eldest son Eugène, before it was placed into stock. The smallest of faults would result in rejection.

Fabergé eggs since 2007

The Fabergé trademarks were consolidated in 2007 and are owned by Fabergé UK Limited, which makes luxury fine jewellery. Among their 21st-century collaborations was a series of pieces celebrating the 007 archive, which included the "007 Octopussy" capsule collection, inspired by the 1983 James Bond film, Octopussy.

In December 2023, Fabergé debuted "Journey in Jewels" on the Seven Seas Grandeur, a luxury cruise ship from Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

List of eggs

List of Fabergé Imperial Easter eggs

Below is a chronology of the 52 eggs made for the imperial family. The dating of the eggs has evolved. An earlier chronology dated the Blue Serpent Clock Egg to 1887 and identified the 1895 egg as the Twelve Monograms Egg. The discovery of the previously lost Third Imperial Easter Egg confirms the chronology below.

List of Kelch eggs

Fabergé was also commissioned to make eggs for Alexander Ferdinandovich Kelch, a Siberian gold mine industrialist, as gifts for his wife Barbara (Varvara) Kelch-Bazanova. Though still "Fabergé eggs" by virtue of having been produced by his workshop, these seven eggs were not as elaborate as the imperial eggs and were not unique in design. Most are copies of other eggs.

Other Fabergé eggs

Location of eggs

Of the 52 known Fabergé eggs, 46 have survived to the present day. Ten of the imperial Easter eggs are displayed at Moscow's Kremlin Armory Museum. Of the 50 delivered imperial eggs, 44 have survived, and there are photographs of three of the six lost eggs: the 1903 Royal Danish Egg, the 1909 Alexander III Commemorative Egg, and the Nécessaire Egg of 1889. The previously lost Third Imperial Easter Egg of 1887 has since been found in the US and bought by Wartski for a private collector. All six of the missing Imperial Eggs belonged to Maria Feodorovna.

After the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks nationalised the House of Fabergé, and the Fabergé family fled to Switzerland, where Peter Carl Fabergé died in 1920. The imperial family's palaces were ransacked and their treasures moved to the Kremlin Armoury on order of Vladimir Lenin.

In a bid to acquire more foreign currency, Joseph Stalin had many of the eggs sold in 1927, after their value had been appraised by Agathon Carl Theodor Fabergé. Between 1930 and 1933, 14 imperial eggs left Russia. Many were sold to Armand Hammer (president of Occidental Petroleum and a personal friend of Lenin, whose father was founder of the United States Communist Party) and to Emanuel Snowman of the London antique dealers Wartski.

After the collection in the Kremlin Armoury, the largest gathering of Fabergé eggs was assembled by Malcolm Forbes and displayed in New York City. Totalling nine eggs and approximately 180 other Fabergé objects, the collection was to be put up for auction at Sotheby's in February 2004 by Forbes' heirs. However, before the auction began, the collection was purchased in its entirety by the oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. In a 2013 BBC Four documentary, Vekselberg revealed he had spent just over US$100 million purchasing the nine Fabergé eggs. He claims never to have displayed them in his home, saying he bought them as they are important to Russian history and culture, and he believed them to be the best jewellery art in the world. In the same BBC documentary, Vekselberg revealed his plan to open a museum that would display the eggs in his collection, which was built as a private Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia on 19 November 2013.

In November 2007, a Fabergé clock, named by Christie's auction house as the Rothschild Egg, sold at auction for £8.9 million (US$16.5 million) (including commission). The price achieved by the egg set three auction records: it is the most expensive timepiece, Russian object, and Fabergé object ever sold at auction, surpassing the US$9.6 million sale of the 1913 Winter Egg in 2002. On 2 December 2025, the Winter Egg was sold at Christie's for £23 million.

In 1989, as part of the San Diego Arts Festival, 26 Fabergé eggs were loaned for display at the San Diego Museum of Art, the largest exhibition of Fabergé eggs anywhere since the Russian Revolution. The eggs included eight from the Kremlin, nine from the Forbes collection, three from the New Orleans Museum of Art, two from the Royal Collection, one from the Cleveland Museum of Art, and three from private collections.

Location of the "Imperial" eggs

Location of the Kelch eggs

Location of other eggs

In popular culture

Due to their rarity and value, Fabergé eggs have acquired cult status and been featured in exhibitions, films, TV series, documentaries, cartoons, and publications, and auctions of original eggs often feature in mainstream news.

They have featured in the plots of several films and television series, including Octopussy (1983), Mr. Belvedere ("Strike" episode, 1985), Love Among Thieves (1987), Murder She Wrote ("An Egg to Die For" episode, 1994), The Simpsons ("'Round Springfield" episode, 1995), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), Case Closed: The Last Wizard of the Century (1999), The Order (2001), Relic Hunter ("M.I.A." episode, 2001), Ocean's Twelve (2004), The Simpsons ("The Last of the Red Hat Mamas" episode, 2005), SpongeBob SquarePants ("What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?" episode, 2008), Thick as Thieves (2009), multiple episodes of White Collar (2009–2014), Leverage ("The Zanzibar Marketplace Job" episode, 2010), American Dad! ("A Jones for a Smith" episode, 2010), The Intouchables (2011), Hustle ("Eat Yourself Slender" episode, 2012), Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated ("The House of the Nightmare Witch" episode, 2012), An Easter Bunny Puppy (2013), Person of Interest ("Search and Destroy" episode, 2015), Imperial Eight (2015), Peaky Blinders ("Lilies of the Valley" egg, season 3, episode 6, 2016), Hooten & the Lady ("Moscow" episode, 2016), Game Night (2018), Between Two Ferns: The Movie (2019), Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020), Lupin (2021), Bhamakalapam (2022), and The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (2023).

In Danielle Steele's 1987 novel Zoya, a Fabergé egg is a keepsake of the last two remaining members of a noble family. The 2011 digital card game Cabals: Magic & Battle Cards features a Fabergé egg as a collectible card. In 2017, visual artist Jonathan Monaghan exhibited a series of digital prints reinterpreting Fabergé eggs in humorous and surreal ways at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.