A rare Fabergé Winter Egg, made of crystal and adorned with 4,000 diamonds, sold for £22.9 million ($30.2 million) at Christie’s London on Tuesday, setting a new auction record for any Fabergé egg. The sale was part of a 48-lot collection titled “The Winter Egg and Important Works by Fabergé from a Princely Collection,” which achieved a total of £27.8 million ($37.1 million). The egg was created for Russia’s imperial family by Alma Theresia Pihl, one of the few women in Fabergé’s St. Petersburg workshop, and fabricated by her uncle, chief jeweler Albert Holmström. It had previously sold at Christie’s in Geneva in 1994 and in New York in 2002.
The record-breaking sale underscores the enduring allure and scarcity of imperial Fabergé eggs, of which only 50 were made between 1885 and 1917. Seven are believed lost, and only seven remain in private hands. The Winter Egg’s price far exceeded the previous record of £8.9 million set in 2007 for a Rothschild-family egg, highlighting the intense demand for top-tier Russian decorative arts at auction. The sale also draws attention to the craftsmanship of Pihl and Holmström, whose work is now recognized as among the most artistically inventive of the Fabergé imperial series.