World newsFaberge egg smashes record for Russian art
A rare pink and gold Faberge egg, adorned with a diamond-studded cockerel and embedded clock, has broken auction records by selling for £9m at Christie's today.
The translucent egg, which had never before been seen in public, set a record for the creations of the Tsarist jeweller and became the most expensive Russian art object and timepiece ever sold at auction.
A spokesman for Christie's said the auction room burst into applause when the hammer went down.
Anthony Philips, a director at the auction house, said: "This is one of the most exciting moments of my 40 years at Christie's."
The piece, not publicly documented when it was made in 1902 for the Rothschild family, went to an unidentified private Russian buyer after a tense 10 minutes of bidding.
According to Christie's experts, there are only two other known Faberge eggs featuring both a clock and an automaton.
The automaton in the egg sold today is a diamond-set cockerel that pops up, flaps its wings, nods its head, opens and shuts its beak and crows every hour.
Faberge eggs have become a byword for opulence and luxury since the young jeweller was commissioned by Tsar Alexander III of Russia in 1885 to make one as a gift for his wife, Maria.
He was so impressed with that first piece - an enamelled egg with a golden yoke, hen, miniature diamond crown and ruby egg inside - that he ordered a new egg every Easter.
After his death, his son, Nicholas, continued the tradition until the Russian revolution in 1917. The Bolsheviks executed him with his family a year later.
The Faberge egg sold today had been in the Rothschild banking family for more than a century.
Edouard Ephrussi, who represented the Rothschild family's oil interests in modern-day Azerbaijan, acquired it.
His sister, Beatrice, gave the piece as an engagement gift to Edouard de Rothschild and Germaine Halphen, who married in 1905.
The previous auction record for a Russian art object, not including paintings, was £6.6m for the Faberge Winter Egg at Christie's New York in April 2002.
Faberge created only 50 eggs for the imperial family and not all survive. Wealthy collectors have commissioned a few others, including the Rothschild egg.
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