The opulent Fabergé eggs date back to 1885 when Tsar Alexander III commissioned the first imperial easter egg for his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna—turning into a yearly tradition up until 1917.
Founded by Gustav Fabergé, who opened a jewellery shop in 1842, his son Peter Carl Fabergé took over the store in 1870 as a fully trained craftsman. In 1885 Carl Fabergé had completed restoration work on objects in collections held at the Hermitage Museum and caught the attention of Tsar Alexander III, who then bestowed him the title of “goldsmith by special appointment to the imperial crown.”
The first Fabergé Easter egg was commissioned by Tsar Alexander III that same year, 1885, as a gift to his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna, becoming a yearly tradition. The giving of eggs was a symbol of new life in the springtime, and the gifts were taken very seriously by the Russian imperial family.
The bespoke eggs showcase superior yet traditional decorative techniques, best known for their gem-setting and hand turn guilloché. Each extravagant egg included a surprise held within the egg shape jewel, some of which had miniature paintings and jewelled replicas of places or objects significant to the imperial Romanov family.
The first Easter egg crafted was called The Hen Egg, which features an opaque white enamelled shell; when opened, a matte yellow gold yolk can be found, inside the yolk contains a gold hen. From the first egg, the legacy of the Fabergé egg only grew.
Fabergé and his team crafted fifty imperial easter eggs between 1885 and 1917 for the imperial Romanov family. After Tsar Alexander III’s death, his son Nicholas II continued the yearly tradition of giving the exuberant eggs commissioning two eggs, one for his mother and his wife.
The final egg to be undertaken from the Fabergé craftsmen was the Constellation Egg, which would have been gifted to Tsar Nicholas II’s wife, Tsarina Alexandra, for Easter in 1917. Not long before its completion, the Russian Revolution broke out, the imperial regime fell, and the Fabergé family went into exile.
In 1918 the Bolsheviks nationalised the House of Fabergé, with production closed. The Fabergé heirs lost the rights to the Fabergé name following the death of their father. The brand name changed owners a few more times before being reunified under new ownership in 2007. In 2015 paying homage to the distinguished Imperial tradition, the Pearl Egg was created, a collaboration with the Al-Fardan Family, renowned collector and trader of pearls.
A new egg is currently underway, co-designed by Fabergé and winning costume designer Liisa Tallgren and Michele Clapton from Game of Thrones.