A previously lost Fabergé egg has been found by London jeweller Wartski in the American Midwest.  After a multi-million pound sale earlier this year, the buyer of this lost treasure has agreed to let the  Third Imperial Fabergé Easter Egg, its whereabouts unknown for more than a century, go on public display in London for four days, just before Easter.  Eight of the 50 Imperial eggs made by Carl Fabergé for the  Russian Imperial family, have been deemed missing with only three of those believed to have survived the Revolution.  This miraculous discovery brings that total number down to seven.

 

This Fabergé egg, only 3.25in (8.2cm) high,  made in yellow and red gold set with cabochon sapphires and rose diamonds, opens via a brilliant-cut diamond thumb piece to reveal a watch with diamond-set hands by the Swiss watchmaker Vacheron Constantin.   Made in the workshop of Fabergé's chief-jeweller August Holmström in St Petersburg, 1886-1887, it was given by Alexander III to the Empress Maria Feodorovna in 1887, making this the third of the Imperial eggs.

 

This Egg was last seen in public 112 years ago when it was photographed in the Von Dervis Mansion exhibition of the Imperial family's Fabergé collection in St Petersburg in March 1902.   During the Revolution, the Egg was confiscated by the Bolsheviks and subsequently entered into in their Moscow inventory in 1922.  It was a time when the Bolsheviks chose to sell many Imperial treasures to the West.  Scholars feared this Egg, as with many other pricess gold treasures, had been melted down for its considerable gold content, but in 2011 the discovery of a grainy black and white photograph of the Egg in a 1964 Parke-Bernet auction catalogue offered the possibility that it was still awaiting rediscovery.

 

Oddly, at the time no one seemed to twig as to the Egg's possible providence, and it was described simply as a 'gold watch in egg form case' and had sold for $2450 (£875 in 1964).  Kieran McCarthy, Fabergé expert at Wartski, has speculated it could  be worth approximately £20m in today's market.

 

From the 1964 sale, the Egg somehow made its way to a flea market in the American midwest were an amateur collector  bought it for $14,000, thinking that the gold value alone would be worth $14,500.  But, he had overestimated its scrap value (the egg has several scratches where its gold content has been sampled).  It breaks my heart to think that anyone in their right mind would buy or sell this obvious materpiece of the goldsmithing's craft as scrap metal !   In any matter, thankfully the man overestimated his investment and so was eventually put on the road of an internet search hoping that the Egg's artistic or historic value may give him the opportunity to recoup his investment.   It was then that The Telegraph article, discussing the 1964 auction, caught his eye, prompting a trail of research, telephone calls  and a flight to London to visit Wartski who have handled the sale of 12 Imperial eggs in their long history.  Shown a series of images of the egg, Mr McCarthy was almost certain a lost Imperial treasure had been found, but to confirm its authenticity he travelled to the small town in the Mid-West where he examined the Egg in person.

 

Wartski have acquired the Egg for a private collector, making the weekend treasure hunter a very wealthy man (although the price has not been revealed). The buyer has allowed the egg to go on public display for four days (April 14-17 from 9.30am to 5pm) in a specially designed exhibition at Wartski ,14 Grafton Street, London W1S 4DE. Entrance will be free, but long lineups  are expected.

 

Two other of the original eight missing Imperial eggs are known to have survived the Russian Revolution. They are the 1889 Necessaire Egg (heavily chased gold, set with pearls and gemstones, without a stand, containing 13 miniature toilet articles) and last recorded at Wartski in June 1952. The 1888 Cherub Egg with Chariot (a gold egg resting in a chariot drawn by a cherub) was last recorded with Armand Hammer in New York in 1934.

 

Photography Prudence Cuming Associates.