The Fifteenth Anniversary Egg. The opalescent and opaque white enamel egg is encased within a grid-shaped cage work of gold and green enamel garlands which frame eighteen scenes painted by court miniaturist Vassily Zuiev. Some of the events of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra's reign over the past fifteen years are recorded in these historical vignettes. Individual portraits of the czarina, her husband and their five children each set within oval-shaped apertures bordered by diamonds. The dates of Nicholas and Alexandra's wedding, 1894, and the fifteenth anniversary of the Coronation, 1911, are set beneath the portraits of the Tsarina and the Tsar respectively. Beneath a table diamond at the top of the egg is the crowned monogram of Tsarina Alexandra; the base is set with a rose-cut diamond - signed Fabergé, height 5 1/8 inches (13 cm)
Provenance: Presented by Tsar Nicholas II to Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna on Easter 1911. It stood on the middle shelf of a corner cabinet in the Tsarina's study at the Alexander Palace

The FORBES Magazine Collection, New York.
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