1886 Hen Egg With Sapphire Pendant

Unfortunately, this is one of the lost Eggs. Not much is known about this Egg except that it is part of the Eggs given by Alexander III to Maria Feodorovna and that it was made in Saint Petersburg. It survived the 1917 Russian revolution, but disappeared after 1922.

In Fabergé, Tatiana, Proler, Lynette, and Valentin V. Skurlov. The Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs, 1997 the Egg is described as:

Hen picking a sapphire Egg out of a basket (including a sapphire – 1800 r.) 2986 r [rubles].

and an archival document is quoted that says:

"1 silver hen, speckled with rose-cut diamonds, on gold stand was removed to the Sovnarkom, the Council of People's Commissars in 1922".

In Lowes, Will and Christel Ludewig McCanless. Fabergé Eggs: A Retrospective Encyclopedia, 2001, The Egg is described as:

A hen of gold, set with rose-cut diamonds, … a sapphire Egg held loosely in the hen’s beak, and the wicker basket made of gold and apparently decorated with rose-cut diamonds included one sapphire Egg, 50 rose-cut diamonds 8/32, 60 rose-cut diamonds 14/32, 400 rose-cut diamonds 51/4; gold, and two cases.

Dr. Géza von Habsburg, in Fabergé Imperial Craftsman and His World, 2000, page 38, fig. 3/4 describes how Fabergé Easter eggs [also] find their origin in jeweled examples from the eighteenth century, showing a jeweled guilloché enamel and gold breloque shaped as a chicken with an egg, St. Petersburg, c. 1790, part of The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

 

 

 

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page updated: April 1, 2016