Fabergé Friday

Here comes one of my favorite Imperial Easter Eggs, number forty-eight - the "Winter Egg", from 1913!

This egg has been thinly carved out of rock-crystal. On the interior it is finely engraved to simulate ice crystals. The outside has also been engraved, and in these channels rose-cut diamonds in platinum are set. On top sits a cabochon moonstone with the year "1913" painted on the reverse side. The egg can be removed from it's base - shaped as a block of melting ice. This base is also made from rock-crystal, with rivulets of platinum set rose-cut diamonds. 

The egg is hinged, with diamonds encircling the whole opening. When opened it reveals the surprise - a double-handled platinum basket set with diamonds, hanging on a platinum hook. The basket is full of wood anemones, each carved - some open, some half-open or in a bud - from a single piece of white quartz, with a demantoid garnet in the center. The leaves are made of nephrite, and the flower's stems, and the moss they sit in, are gold wire. The base of the basket is engraved with "Fabergé 1913" in Roman letters.

With 1,660 diamonds on the egg, and 1,378 on the basket, the "Winter Egg" is the most expensive Imperial Easter Egg ever made. In 1913 the price was 24,700 rubles (752 USD today). In 2002 it sold at an auction at Christie's in New York City for 9.6 million USD. The buyer was the Emir of Qatar.