Peter Carl Fabergé built his reputation on a technique that seems almost impossible today: an enamel palette of 144 distinct shades. He applied it so precisely that the colors appeared to glow from within the metal.
Before Fabergé, fine jewelry in Russia followed a familiar formula — large stones, heavy settings, value measured in carats. Fabergé inverted the equation. He chose gemstones for how well they served the design, not for their size or price. Color and craftsmanship carried the piece instead.
That philosophy produced the House of Fabergé's most famous commission: the Imperial Easter eggs. They were made for the Russian Tsars between 1885 and 1917.
The story of the first egg begins not in Russia, but in Denmark. Tsar Alexander III's wife, Maria Feodorovna, was born Princess Dagmar of Denmark. In 1885, he wanted to give her an Easter gift that recalled home, and is believed to have commissioned Fabergé to recreate an egg from the Danish royal collection in Copenhagen — a design Maria already knew from her childhood.
Source: Imperial Easter egg "Kurochka" of the Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg - Mikhail Ovchinnikov
The result was the "Hen Egg": a plain white enameled shell that opened to reveal a matte gold yolk. Inside the yolk sat a small gold hen. Inside the hen, smaller still, was a miniature diamond replica of the Imperial Crown holding a tiny ruby pendant.
Maria was reportedly delighted. What began as a single gift became an annual tradition — a new, more elaborate egg commissioned every Easter for more than three decades. The crown-and-ruby surprise from that first egg has since been lost, though the Hen Egg itself survives.
Fabergé's workshop went on to produce around 50 Imperial eggs, no two alike. Each one hid a different surprise inside: a miniature train, a model of the Trans-Siberian railway, a working clock. The eggs became less about the egg itself and more about the craftsmanship hidden inside it — a value system closer to Fabergé's original enamel philosophy than to the stone-heavy jewelry it replaced.
source: The India Early Minshall Collection - https://clevelandart.org/art/1966.436
That same idea still holds: craftsmanship over carat weight. It's the idea behind our Russian Collection — pieces inspired by the enamel work, the gold detailing, and the quiet extravagance of the Imperial workshop, reimagined as jewelry for daily wear.
Explore the Russian Collection.
Start with the piece the eggs inspired directly: Fabergé – Imperial Egg with Cutout.
