Fabergé egg clocks in at record €12.6m

A Fabergé egg never before seen in public has fetched a record €12.6m, setting an auction record for the jeweller, for any Russian art object and for any timepiece.

The translucent pink egg (right) contains a clock and animated cockerel. It was not publicly documented when it was made in 1902 for the Rothschild family.

A spokesman for Christie's said a tense auction room in London burst into applause when the hammer went down.

The piece went to an unidentified private Russian buyer.

Anthony Philips, a Christie's director, called the egg 'one of the very best of Fabergé's greatest creations', and added that the sale was one of the most exciting moments of his 40 years with the auction house.

Fabergé's eggs have become a byword for opulence and luxury ever since the young jeweller was commissioned in 1885 by Russia's Tsar Alexander III to make one as a gift for his wife, Maria.

According to Christie's experts, there are only two other known Fabergé eggs featuring both a clock and an automaton.

In this case the automaton is in the form of a diamond-set cockerel which pops up, flaps its wings, nods its head, opens and shuts its beak and crows every hour.

The previous auction record for a Russian art object, not including paintings, was €9.25m, set by the Fabergé Winter Egg at Christie's New York in April 2002.

Most Fabergé eggs were made for the Tsar and his family, but a few were commissioned by wealthy collectors.

Tsar Alexander asked Fabergé to make one egg a year until his son, the next Tsar Nicholas II, ordered him to make two a year - one for his wife and one for his mother.

The tradition ended in 1917 when Nicholas was forced to abdicate and he and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.

By then 50 such Imperial Easter eggs had been made, although not all have survived. A maximum of 12 Imperial standard eggs are known to have been made for private clients.

Fabergé and his goldsmiths designed and constructed the first egg in 1885. It was commissioned by Tsar Alexander III of Russia as an Easter surprise for his wife Maria Fyodorovna.

On the outside it looked like a simple egg of white enamelled gold, but it opened up to reveal a golden yolk. The yolk itself had a golden hen inside it, which in turn had a tiny crown with a ruby hanging inside, reminiscent of the matryoshka nesting dolls.

Maria was so delighted by this gift that Alexander appointed Fabergé a "Court Supplier" and commissioned an Easter gift each year thereafter, stipulating only that it be unique and contain a surprise. His son, Nicholas II of Russia continued the tradition, annually presenting an egg to his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna as well as his then-widowed mother.

As the House of Fabergé prospered (due in no small part to the cachet of imperial patronage), the preparation of the eggs came to take up an entire year; once a concept was chosen, a team of artisans worked to assemble the project.

The themes and appearance of the eggs varied widely. For instance, on the outside, the Trans-Siberian railway Egg of 1900 was dominated by a dull metallic gray band with a map of the railway's route, but inside it had an entire tiny train in gold.

Fifty-seven Imperial eggs were produced in all. The Order of St. George Egg left Russia with Maria Fyodorovna in 1918, but the rest, forgotten in the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, remained. Several disappeared in the looting, and the rest were boxed up in the vaults of the Kremlin. In and after 1930, Stalin sold fourteen to raise cash, some for as little as US$400. Many of these were bought by Armand Hammer and Emmanuel Snowman of Wartski, the English Fabergé dealers.
As of 2006, just twenty-one eggs were still in Russia, most on display at the Kremlin Armory Museum. Fifteen eggs were purchased by Viktor Vekselberg in February 2004 from the Forbes family in New York City. The Vekselberg collection arrived in Russia in July 2004. Smaller collections are in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, New Orleans Museum of Art, and other museums around the world. Four eggs are in private collections, and eight are still missing.

In modern times Victor Mayer, the inheritor of the Fabergé brand, creates "Fabergé eggs" that are inspired by the originals.