Editor’s Note
A legendary Fabergé masterpiece, the “Winter Egg,” has set a new auction record, selling for £22.9 million at Christie’s in London. Dubbed the “Mona Lisa of decorative arts,” its sale underscores the enduring prestige and immense value of imperial craftsmanship.
On December 2nd, the legendary masterpiece known as the “Winter Egg,” also hailed as the “Mona Lisa of decorative arts,” appeared at an auction held by Christie’s in London. It was sold for £22.9 million (approximately ¥4.74 billion).
The “Winter Egg” is a masterpiece from the House of Fabergé. Founded in Saint Petersburg in the early 19th century, the renowned jewelry house reached its zenith under the second-generation Peter Carl Fabergé, creating luxurious decorative works known as “Fabergé eggs (Easter eggs)” for the Russian imperial family. A total of 50 were delivered to the imperial family, and over 60 are known to exist including commissions from the wealthy. After the October Revolution of 1917, the workshop was nationalized by the Bolshevik government, and the Fabergé family fled abroad. The workshop disbanded, and many Fabergé eggs were scattered around the world. Currently, 43 have been confirmed, with 7 still missing.
This precious “Fabergé egg,” the “Winter Egg,” was commissioned in 1913 by Tsar Nicholas II for his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna.
According to ARTnews, the design was created by Alma Theresia Pihl, one of the few female designers working at the Fabergé workshop. The execution was handled by her uncle and chief jeweler, Albert Holmström. It is said that Pihl conceived the design while gazing at the view from the workshop window on a winter day.
The work is an opulent creation featuring delicate frost-like carvings on challenging rock crystal, adorned with approximately 4,500 diamonds. Inside, anemone flowers of spring, rendered in quartz and demantoid garnet, are arranged, hinting at the end of winter. Its high artistry has earned it the title of the “Mona Lisa of decorative arts.”
Christie’s described the piece as “one of the most opulent, inventive, and imaginative works ever delivered by Fabergé to the Russian Imperial family.”
The auction for this masterpiece lasted three minutes, with an anonymous bidder securing it for £22.9 million (approximately ¥4.74 billion), slightly exceeding the pre-sale estimate of £20 million (approximately ¥4.1 billion). This set a new record price for a “Fabergé egg.”
The previous record was £8.9 million (approximately ¥1.84 billion at current exchange rates) set in 2007 at Christie’s London for an egg owned by the Rothschild family. This latest sale significantly surpasses that record.