1895 The Rosebud Egg

Alexandra Feodorovna

Purchase price: 3,250 rubles.

The Rosebud Imperial Easter Egg was the first Easter present created by Faberge for the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna.

The Egg, in the Louis XVI style, is covered with red enamel over guilloche ground and decorated with wreaths and swags of varicolored gold. The Egg is partitioned by four bands of rose-cut diamonds — with bowknots and arrows also laid out in rose-cut diamonds. The Egg is crowned with a circle of diamonds over a band of white enamel, with a miniature portrait of Nicholas II at the center, under a table diamond. The lower end is similarly decorated with the year “1895” under the diamond. The Egg contained a surprise: a tea rose in bud, enameled in opaque yellow, its stem enameled in light green. The yellow rose opens to reveal an Imperial crown made of rose-cut diamonds and two cabochon rubies.

In the collection of the Faberge Museum, St. Petersburg

https://fabergemuseum.ru/ru/collection/item/28