Posted on 11/28/2007 5:39:37 AM PST by rawhide
LONDON — A rare enamel-and-gold Faberge egg that had been in the Rothschild banking family for more than a century is expected to fetch millions at auction Wednesday.
Bids for the pink egg topped with a diamond-studded cockerel could go as high as $18 million, Christie's predicted as the auction got under way in London.
That price would break the record for Russian artwork: $9.6 million paid for a Faberge egg in New York in April 2002.
Russian Czar Alexander III commissioned the first of the elaborate eggs from craftsman Peter Carl Faberge as an Easter gift for his wife, Empress Maria Fedorovna.
The empress was so enamored of that 1885 egg — an enameled egg with a golden yoke, golden hen, miniature diamond crown and ruby egg inside — that the czar commissioned a new egg every Easter.
After the czar died in 1894, his son Nicholas continued the tradition until the Russian Revolution in 1917. Nicholas and his family were executed in 1918.
Faberge created more than 50 eggs for Russia's imperial family, though not all survive.
The Rothschild Faberge Egg is one of no more than 12 such pieces known to have made to imperial standards for private clients, Christie's said.
The Faberge egg up for auction Wednesday originally was acquired by Edouard Ephrussi, who represented the Rothschild family's oil interests.
Ephrussi's sister, Beatrice, gave the piece as an engagement gift to Edouard de Rothschild and Germaine Halphen, who married in 1905. Christie's said it had remained in the family since.
[sheila jackson lee]Imagine what it’ll be worth when it hatches[/sheila jackson lee]
That’s a lotta money. This egg story is no yolk!
$18M is a lot of nuts for an egg.
"Well, I did touch up the paint a little bit on one side ..."
It’d make a nice Christmas gift...
This would make a better one!
I have to agree... but if you’re buying, I want the Superleggera!
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