BEIJING, Dec. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- A rare translucent
pink Faberge egg made from enamel and gold that had been in the Rothschild
banking family for more than 100 years was sold at auction Wednesday for a
record 18.5 million U.S. dollars.
The sale of the egg, topped with a diamond-studded
cockerel, was the highest for a Faberge work of art, Christie's auction house
said. The price also broke the record for Russian artwork, except paintings,
easily beating the 9.6 million dollars paid for a Faberge egg in New York
in 2002, Christie's said.
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The Rothschild Faberge egg on displayed
at Christie's auction house in London, Oct. 4, 2007. The previously
unrecorded Faberge egg fetched $18.5 million on Wednesday, setting an
auction record for the jeweller, any Russian art object and any timepiece.
The translucent pink egg contains a clock and animated cockerel and had
never been seen in public before the sale was announced.(Reuters
File Photo)
Photo
Gallery>>> |
"It
holds an amazing fascination for just about everybody, from James Bond onwards
as far as I remember," said Anthony Philips, Christie's Russian art specialist.
"It's just a magic name. The quality is fantastic. There's a romantic
association with the Russian Revolution. They're of stunning workmanship."
Prices for Russian art have escalated as the
country's increased wealth makes its way on to the international art market.
Sales of Russian art at Christie's rose from 27 million dollars in 2004 to 79
million dollars in 2006, spokesman Matthew Patton said.
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.
The empress was so enamored of that 1885 piece ¡ª an
enameled egg with a gold yolk, gold hen, miniature diamond crown and ruby egg
inside ¡ª that the czar commissioned a new egg every Easter.
After the czar died in 1894, his son Nicholas
continued the tradition until the Russian Revolution in 1917. Nicholas and his
family were executed in 1918. 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.
(Agencies)
