6 December 2025

Peter Carl Faberge is considered to be the greatest Russian jeweler of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Every Easter, he was commissioned by the Tsar to produce an Easter Egg of exquisite beauty. Inside each one, there was a secret.

Inside one, there is a yellow rosebud. Inside another, there is the golden Coronation Coach. This is a photograph of the Winter Egg. Inside it, there  is a basket of anemones. This egg was sold at Christie’s on Tuesday for £22,895,000! It was a record!

Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, commissioned Faberge to create two eggs each Easter -  one for his wife and one for his mother. His mother received the Winter Egg in 1913. It is one of fifty eggs which Faberge created. Only forty-three have survived.

The Winter Egg  has been sculpted from a crystal featuring diamond encrusted platinum snowflakes. The bouquet of flowers have been made from white quartz anemones. They are held together by gold wire stems and gathered in a platinum basket.

The egg is a symbol of new life and has become a feature of Easter celebrations. Easter is celebrated in the Spring but this egg is very wintry. It’s icy looking. But inside there are some Spring flowers. It makes a striking connection between the two seasons, Winter and Spring, Christmas and Easter.

You cannot have the one without the other. The joy of birth gives way to the pain of crucifixion. The baby grows up and suffers a humiliating death. Out of both, there is the new life of Easter symbolized by the egg. The extravagance of the Faberge Egg celebrates the pricelessness of the Christian Gospel.

The Tsar’s extravagant love for his mother has now become a work of art celebrating Easter, the resurrection and its promise of new life. It begins with the Christchild and ends with the Christ in a garden of anemones. Pray that our Christmas may become a little Easter with new life for our family, friends  and kirk.