Constellation (Fabergé egg)

Constellation Fabergé egg
Unfinished egg from Fersman Mineralogical Museum
Year delivered	Unfinished (1917)
Customer	Alexandra Feodorovna
Current owner
Individual or institution	Fersman Mineralogical Museum / Faberge Museum
Year of acquisition	2001 / late 1990s
Design and materials
Materials used	Glass, diamond, crystal

The Constellation Egg is one of two Easter eggs designed under the supervision of Peter Carl Fabergé in 1917, for the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II. It was the last Fabergé egg designed. It remains unfinished.

Description

Due to the Russian Revolution of 1917, the egg was never finished or presented to Tsar Nicholas' wife, the Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna.

The egg, as it is known from 1917 document, was made of blue glass with a crystal base, and the Leo sign of the zodiac is engraved on the glass. (The heir to the Russian throne, Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia, was a Leo). There are stars that are marked by diamonds, and there is a clock mechanism inside the egg.

First egg

In 2001, a similar item was discovered in the Fersman Mineralogical Museum in Moscow, and experts believe it to be an unfinished egg made by Faberge.^[1] It is an unfinished item without diamonds. In recent years there have been several suggested sources of inspiration for the piece.^[2]

Second egg

Russian millionaire Alexander Ivanov claims that he owns the original (and finished)^[3] egg. In 2003–2004 he said that he acquired this egg in the late 1990s and affirms that "the Fersman Museum erroneously continues to claim that it has the original egg. Experts and their research clearly support the Alexander Ivanov's egg as genuine." Russian museum authorities considered this as nonsense and fake.^[4] His egg is now in the Faberge Museum in Baden-Baden, which houses part of his Faberge collection.

See also

• Fabergé egg
• Egg decorating

References

1. Карл Фаберже и мастера камнерезного дела. Самоцветные сокровища России. // Carl Faberge and masters of stone carving. Russian gems. Catalogue of the exhibition in Kremlin, Moscow. 2011. P. 62.
2. The Blue Constellation Egg and the Golden Age of Pictorial Star Atlases
3. See photo

• Faberge Museum website

External links

• The piece is part of the Fersman Mineralogical Museum collection, Moscow
• Description and history of the object