The Fabergé egg, the most precious Easter egg in the world
The Fabergé company manufactured the very precious and rare Fabergé eggs for the Russian tsar family in Saint Petersburg. These eggs were intended as an Easter gift.
An over the top Easter egg
In the Slavic world, artistically painting wooden eggs and giving them as gifts is an age-old tradition. Of course, as a self-respecting tsar you cannot arrive with such a cheap gift, so the then tsar Nicholas III decided to go bigger. He engaged the royal supplier and jeweler Fabergé in Saint Petersburg to make Easter eggs for his wife. In retrospect, we can say that this aim has been a great success. Because the Fabergé eggs are still legendary and the eggs are worth tens of millions of dollars each.
The eggs are famous for their very fine finish, which was unprecedentedly precise, especially for the nineteenth century. The jeweler spent months working on one egg, where every detail was designed with great precision. The materials were also precious, such as precious stones, gold and platinum, but the main value of the eggs lies in the unprecedented craftsmanship – according to some even the best in the world, ever.
Fabergé egg sold by Stalin
Most of the eggs are no longer in Russia. After the takeover of power, the communists made short work of the tsar and other members of the Romanov family. The eggs were confiscated by the new rulers. Several copies were lost. At the moment, more than ten eggs are still missing.
When the Soviets were arming themselves against, among other things, the impending invasion of Nazi Germany, hard currencies were in short supply. So Stalin seized the looted gold treasures of the Romanovs. Of course, the legendary Fabergé eggs took a prominent place. The Soviets sold these for a lot of money, so that a large number ended up in the US and the UK. For example, the British royal family owns about three. After the fall of the Soviet Union, some well-connected Russian businessmen became very wealthy. One of them, Viktor Vekselberg, managed to get nine Fabergé eggs back to Russia.
