1900 The Cockerel Egg
(Maria Feodorovna)
Purchase price 6,500 rubles.
The Cockerel Egg-Clock, made for the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna and presented to her at Easter of 1900, is an example of 19th-century historical revivalism, marked by a deliberate appeal to the artistic heritage of the past.
This piece is first mentioned in Nicholas II’s letter to his mother, dated April 5, 1900, where the Tsar accounts for the absence of the traditional Easter present, citing Faberge’s reluctance to ship the Egg to Moscow in anticipation of the Empress’ return to the Gatchina Palace. In Faberge’s invoice the Cockerel Egg is described as an “Easter egg enameled in violet, with a cockerel and a clock, 1 portrait diamond, 188 rose-cut diamonds, 2 rubies.” Subsequently this description appeared in catalogues of Imperial treasures evacuated from St. Petersburg to Moscow in 1917, as well as in an inventory of items transferred from the Kremlin to the State Repository for Precious Metals and Gems in 1922. This egg frequently changed its owners: beginning in 1927 it was sold no fewer than seven times.
Workmaster Mikhail Perkhin drew inspiration for this Egg from a mechanism found in singing-bird boxes made in Geneva in the early 19thcentury. At the touch of a button, a lid at the top of the Egg springs open to reveal a cockerel, adorned with real bird feathers, set on a platform. The cockerel crows and flaps its wings, then returns to its compartments and the lid closes.
The clock face of the Cockerel Egg is applied with mother-of-pearl enamel, its Arabic numerals set out in small diamonds, and the clock hands are made of gold. The dial is framed above by a laurel wreath of gold with pearls and diamonds. At one time, a pearl pendant in the form of a miniature egg, now lost, hung from this frame. The Cockerel Egg rests on a graceful stand decorated with lush twisting leaves, and is held up by tapered pilasters, enameled translucent oyster,with gold ornament of entwining ribbon.
Now in the collection of the Faberge Museum, St. Petersburg, RF