Gladly, this is not something you can cook and eat – something this expensive is better off displayed and admired by many.
Faberge eggs are considered the world's most costly and luxurious eggs.
It was the Easter of 1885, and Russia was having the most wonderful festivity of the Orthodox faith. In this same year, Czar Alexander III and Czarina Maria Fedorovna will be celebrating the arrival of their 20th anniversary.
Eager to give his wife the most exceptional gift for their anniversary, Czar Alexander III made an appointment with a young jeweler, Peter Carl Fabergé. Faberge, known to have impressed Maria’s eye for his beautiful creations of jewelries, was ordered to present a special gift for the Czarina. He arrived at the palace on Easter morning carrying what seemed to be a plain, enameled egg. However, to the surprise of the Empress, the egg revealed a golden yolk. And inside of that is a golden hen; and veiled within is a diamond miniature of the Imperial crown holding a tiny ruby pendant.
Empress Maria was so charmed by the Czar’s gift, and so Fabergé was given a special order to create another Easter egg for the following year. The following year marked another impression to the royal palace, thus giving freedom to Fabergé to create more Imperial eggs in the future. Czar Alexander presented his requirement to Fabergé that each egg must be unique, and each must hold a surprise inside for the Empress Maria.
When Alexander III died in 1894, his son Nicholas continued the royal tradition and presented an Imperial egg both to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna, and his wife Empress Alexandra Fedorovna.
The Imperial eggs became famous and Fabergé made other models for a few selected clients, though his first priority will always be to the Czar.
Due to its popularity, the royal eggs were later called Faberge eggs. In the James Bond film, Octopussy, a Faberge egg was used by Bond. He took the original egg and replaced it with a replica egg with a recording tool.
As each egg were made of expensive metals and gemstones, only 57, out of 65 known Faberge eggs survived to the current day. The last auction sale in 2002 sold the famous 1913 Faberge Winter egg for $9.58 million.
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