Alexander with Ocean's 12 Original

Forbes-Fabergé Auction

Fabergé Frenzy: Forbeses Put Their Eggs in One Basket

News of the planned sale of some 200 of the Forbes Magazine Collection's Fabergé treasures has sent shock waves through the international art world. Not only are these superb pieces to be sold, but they will go under the hammer at a single Sotheby's auction in New York, on April 20 and 21. At the heart of this collection are nine of the 50 Fabergé Easter eggs made for czars Alexander III and Nicholas II. In 1885, Alexander III gave a simple white enamel hen's egg to his consort, Marie Fedorovna. Inside was a gold hen in a gold yoke — delicate surprises to delight and charm his wife. Nicholas II continued the tradition, but he ordered eggs for both his mother, the Dowager Empress, and his czarina, Alexandra Fedorovna. These eggs, each unique, represent the pinnacle of the House of Fabergé's art and craft and the zenith of the decorative arts. Some eggs took years to complete. Even in his own time, court jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé was acknowledged as the supreme master, and the future looked golden.

But suddenly, with World War I and the Russian Revolution, it was all gone. Those bloody events ensured an almost mystical reverence for Fabergé, and especially those Easter eggs. And that reverence goes far beyond the skills of Fabergé's jewelers and craft workers. Why?

Fabergé represents a world for which our modern age sometimes yearns, however irrationally. A time of unmatched luxury and privilege for some, when kings and princes still patronized the arts and artists. Fabergé also represents the loss of innocence as World War I — the first truly mechanized war — overwhelmed Europe. It represents a loss of power as the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty was swept into oblivion. And, finally, Fabergé represents a loss of the dazzling beauty born of the highest skills and imagination as the Belle Époque died a sudden, violent death.

Malcolm Forbes was first gripped by Fabergé fever in the mid-1960s, when he purchased an Easter egg made for the American-born Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough. Over the next two decades, he shrewdly bought a dozen or so eggs, nine of them Imperial presents. The generosity of the Forbes family in sharing with the public has allowed tens of thousands of museum visitors world-wide to view these exquisite objects and to learn history in the context of the decorative arts. The last Imperial Easter Egg sold at auction — the 1913 Winter Egg — went for more than $9.5 million to an anonymous buyer in 2002. In 1994, the same egg sold at auction for just over $5.5 million. The czar had paid Fabergé the equivalent of $250,000 in 1994 dollars, back in 1913. Our analysis of 16 Fabergé eggs, which have appeared on the auction market since 1934, shows an annual appreciation of 7% to 22.5% in the investment. These prices are a combination of buyers' desire for the very best, of rarity of product, and of limited accessibility: The eggs infrequently come on the open market.

The Fabergé world is buzzing with the inevitable questions: What will happen when nine Imperial eggs appear in the same sale? Just how strong will demand be? Will the supply depress prices?

In March 1954, Sotheby's auctioned the Fabergé collection of King Farouk, the ousted Egyptian monarch. The Egyptian government complained to Sotheby's that the prices were poor. But Farouk had collected so much Fabergé work of various kinds that single lots often contained up to three pieces. It took days and days to sell it all. The two Farouk eggs, the 1906 Imperial Swan Egg and the 1898 Kelch Hen Egg (made for a Russian mining magnate), brought relatively healthy prices. The Forbes pieces are fewer in number and generally of a higher quality.

Of the nine eggs, the crown jewel is the 1897 Coronation Egg, one of Fabergé's finest technical achievements. It contains the articulated miniature model of the coach that took Alexandra to her coronation in May 1896. Hundreds died in a Moscow meadow the day after that coronation, in a stampede to get free beer and souvenirs. That night, the Imperial couple attended a ball as though nothing had happened. Such was the anger of the masses that Nicholas II — Bloody Nicholas, as he became known — avoided Moscow for the next seven years. Nicholas was to become the last of the czars.

Sotheby's estimates the Coronation Egg will bring $18 million to $24 million. That may be optimistic, given the chance buyers will have to purchase other eggs at the auction. But who knows? Perhaps the sale of this fairy-tale creation, linked to a tragedy all too real, will lead to a happy ending in the showrooms this spring.

Resources: www.scarecrowpress.com; www.sothebys.com;

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