Fabergé will always be known for its 50 bejeweled imperial Easter eggs created from approximately 1885 to 1917 by Peter Carl Fabergé for the Russian tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II. They were given as Easter gifts for their wives and mothers.
This year the luxury jewelry house drew from this tradition by unveiling a bejeweled egg at Baselworld 2015, created in the same style as the priceless eggs exhibited nearly a century ago.
The Fabergé Pearl Egg draws its inspiration from the formation of a pearl within an oyster. The bejeweled egg is created with precious and rare materials and hand-crafted in the same manner as the original Fabergé imperial eggs.
The objet d’art has approximately 3,300 diamonds, 139 natural pearls, carved rock crystal and mother-of-pearl set on white and yellow gold. The egg opens to reveal what the luxury jeweler describes as a rare 12.17-carat grey pearl from the Arabian Gulf. It took approximately 18 months to design, acquire the precious materials and build the egg with 20 high-skilled craftspersons.
The company also revealed a buyer: Hussain Al-Fardan, chairman of the Alfardan Group, founding director of Investcorp. He is a renowned natural pearl collector who paid an undisclosed seven-figure price for the object.
There are few tsars left in the world but as the company already proved there is a demand for modern versions of these precious eggs. So maybe an Easter tradition will be revised.
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| Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco |
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