1908 The Alexander Palace Egg
Alexandra Feodorovna
Purchase price 12,300 rubles.
The Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, traditionally the summer residence of the Tsars, had in the reign of Nicholas II become the permanent residence of the Imperial family. A miniature replica of the Alexander Palace, in tinted gold, silver and enamel, is the surprise of this Egg — one of Carl Faberge’s most accomplished creations — which Nicholas II presented to his wife at Easter of 1908. Made of delicate nephrite, the Egg is decorated with miniature portraits of the couple’s five children: the four Grand Duchesses and their only son, the Tsesarevich Alexey. Their lovely faces are painted in watercolors on ivory and placed under convex plates of rock crystal. On the inside of the Egg, the portraits are backed with plates of gold, inscribed with each child’s name and date of birth.
The choice of the Neo-classical style for this Egg was dictated by the specific characteristics of its surprise: the strict proportions of the Alexander Palace, built by the architect Giacomo Quarenghi in 1792. Small diamonds form the frames about the miniature portraits of the children, and spell out each child’s first initial beneath an Imperial crown. The jewelers in the workshop of H. Wigstrom used 1,805 tiny rose-cut diamonds, along with 54 ruby cabochons, representing frozen drops of water. Two large triangular diamonds are applied at either end of the Egg, covering, at one end, the date of production, and , at the other, the monogram of the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna. These triangular diamonds, together with three smaller ones placed along their sides, form six-pointed stars, presumably representing the Star of Bethlehem, which had appeared at the moment of Christ’s birth.
The portrait of the Tsesarevich Aleksey Nikolaevich, painted from a 1907 photograph, is placed at the center of the precious “shell” of the Egg. Universally beloved, the Tsesarevich, with his golden locks and large doe eyes, was said to resemble a cherub. Afflicted with the terrible disease hemophilia, Aleksey Nikolaevich was the very center that pulled the family together in times of joy and of sorrow.
In the collection of the Kremlin Armory Museum, Moscow, RF.