Imperial Easter Eggs

The celebration of Easter is paramount in the Eastern Orthodox calendar. It is the symbol of the Resurrection of Christ and it also heralds the return of spring. Russians have always embraced this holiday with great happiness and joy. For centuries, the egg symbolized both the Resurrection of Christ and life itself. It was only natural that Fabergé took this easily recognized symbol and added his unique style to the finest materials and unsurpassed technical expertise to create the crown jewels of his creations – the Imperial Easter eggs.

These eggs were very labor intensive. Many took a year or more to create with dozens of people being involved in the various stages of production, but always under the watchful eye of the workmaster. For Fabergé, these eggs were not a profitable undertaking since the average price of 10,000 rubles could never have covered the cost of man-hours alone (The time spent on the coach in the Coronation Egg took over 7,200 hours). The motivation for their creation was undoubtedly the reputation that he derived as a result of their fabrication. Every year the anticipation was palpable, for the theme of the eggs was always held as a closely guarded secret. Even when the Tsar himself inquired as to the theme, Fabergé would respond, “Your Majesty will be pleased.” And he always was!

After the Revolution, the eggs became scattered all over the world. One of the largest collections was amassed by the magazine publishing empire of Malcolm Forbes in New York, which at one time owned nine Imperial Eggs and about 180 other objects. The collection was purchased in 2004 by

Victor Vekselberg, whose purpose was to return these icons of Russian art back to the country from which they had been so maliciously removed so many years before.

It is beyond the scope of this web site to discuss and display all of the eggs (there were close to sixty) that were created for the Tsar and others. I’ll display some of my favorites here. I’ll also do my best to direct my readers to other sites whose creators have the depth of education on the subject in order to give you a better knowledge of what incredible creativity and craftsmanship went into the creation of these masterpieces. It is my hope, after perusing these pages, that the visitor to this site will be encouraged to use it as a steppingstone to explore the wonderful beauty, both natural and made by human hands, that surrounds us in the world around us.