Must Read: Rare Faberge egg sells for record setting $18.5 million at auction

By Raphael G. Satter (12)

Thursday, November 29, 2007
© Copyright 2013 Gwinnett Daily Post

LONDON - A rare Faberge egg that had been in the Rothschild banking family for more than a century sold for record-setting $18.5 million at auction Wednesday.

The sale of the translucent pink egg topped with a diamond-studded cockerel was a record for a Faberge work of art, Christie's auction house said.

The price also broke the record for Russian artwork, excluding paintings.

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.

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 been made to imperial standards for private clients, Christie's said.

The Faberge egg sold Wednesday originally was acquired by Edouard Ephrussi, who represented the Rothschild family's oil interests in Baku, in modern-day Azerbaijan.

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.

The piece was sold to a private Russian bidder after 10 minutes of bidding, Christie's said.

Gwinnett Daily Post