Faberge Egg Beats Its Own Record at Auction

A rare Fabergé egg commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II in 1913 shattered auction records Tuesday, fetching $30.2 million at Christie's in London. The Winter Egg, originally a gift for the Russian ruler's mother, is one of just seven of the Imperial Eggs made by the House of Fabergé still in private hands. The winning bid, which topped Christie's $26 million estimate, came after a brief bidding war and set a new high mark for the Russian jeweler's work at auction—beating the previous record of $9.6 million for an Imperial Egg, which the same egg set in 2002, CNN reports. A Fabergé egg made for the a member of the Rothschild family sold for $18.5 million in 2007.

Considered the most artistically inventive of the Fabergé eggs, the Winter Egg was designed by Alma Pihl, one of the few female jewelers of her era. She was the niece of Fabergé's chief jeweler. Inspired by frost on her workshop window, Pihl crafted the egg from rock crystal and platinum, adorning it with 4,500 rose-cut diamonds to evoke ice and snow. Inside is a tiny basket of wood anemones, fashioned from quartz, nephrite, and garnets. Before the auction, Christie's called it the "Mona Lisa of the decorative arts."

The egg's journey from imperial treasure to auction centerpiece mirrors Russia's tumultuous history. After the 1917 revolution, it was sold by the Bolsheviks and passed through several private collections, disappearing for a time before reemerging at auction in the 1990s. The egg was part of a larger sale of Fabergé objects from what Christie's described only as a "princely collection." Peter Carl Fabergé and his company created more than 50 eggs for the Russian royals and at least 43 survive, most in museums, the AP reports. The other egg crafted by Pihl is owned by the British royal family.