JEWELRY NEWS

Nine Faberge Eggs Up For Auction

Pat Dwyer, Jewelry.com

Nine Easter gifts will be up for auction this April at Sotheby's in New York. These of course are not just any gifts, but rather Faberge Eggs, commissioned by Tsar Alexander III in 1885 as Easter gifts for his wife, the Tsarina Maria Feodorovna.

The nine eggs, together with another 180 other dazzling Faberge creations are part of the Forbes Collection, the largest private collection of the fabled Faberge Imperial Easter Eggs in the world and one of the largest collections in existence. The offered items are estimated to be worth in excess of $90 million.

A common metaphor for unique, intricate and extraordinary treasures, they were first commissioned from the House of Faberge by Tsar Alexander III. His son and successor, Tsar Nicholas II, later commissioned more for his own wife Alexandra and for his mother, the Dowager Empress, continuing an Imperial Easter tradition, which endured for over thirty years.

In a statement, the Forbes family said they had decided to auction the eggs in line with their father's wish that other collectors could experience the pleasure of acquiring and owning such unique pieces.

"The Faberge Collection was one of the great passions of our father's life. The acquisitions, the auctions and its assembly were extraordinary adventures for all of us," the Forbes family says.

Forbes, who died in 1990, began his obsessive acquisition of Faberge eggs after purchasing a House of Faberge gold cigarette lighter in 1960.

The brightest jewel in the Forbes collection is the spectacular Coronation Egg -- valued at up to 24 million dollars -- which Tsar Nicholas II gave Empress Alexandra for Easter in 1897 to mark his ascension to the throne. Created of gold enamel mounted with a trelliswork of diamond-set Imperial eagles, the egg opens to reveal a velvet-lined compartment containing a replica of the coach in which Alexandra made her grand entry into Moscow.

One of the rarest pieces is The Winter Egg. Studded with more than 3,000 diamonds, this piece was sold at auction by Christie's in New York in April 2002, for a record 9.6 million dollars to an anonymous collector.

In April, Sotheby's in New York will auction the stunning collection of nine eggs that is second only to the 10 housed in the Armory Museum in the Kremlin. Queen Elizabeth II currently owns three of the eggs as part of the crown jewels. There were altogether just 50 imperial Faberge Eggs created during the reigns of the final Tsars. Eight of the famous eggs are missing. The auction is timely, with interest in Faberge eggs currently riding extremely high.

Some source material reprinted with permission from IDEX Magazine (http://www.idexonline.com/).