Karelian Birch (Fabergé egg)

The Karelian Birch egg, also known as "Karelian Birch" or the Birch Egg, is a Fabergé egg, one of a series of fifty-two jewelled Easter eggs made under the supervision of Peter Carl Fabergé in 1917 for the last Tsar of Russia Nicholas II. It was the second to last Fabergé egg made, before "Constellation". The Karelian Birch egg was considered lost until 2001, when a private collector in whose possession it had been since 1927 sold it to the State Historical Museum in Moscow.

Design

The egg is made out of Karelian birch panels set in a gold frame. This departure in design from previous eggs, which were far more ornate and gilded, was due to popular discontent with the monarchy and declining fortunes as a result of World War I.cite web|last=Mieks|title=1917 Birch Egg|url=http://www.mieks.com/Faberge2/1917-Birch-Egg.htm|publisher=Mieks Fabergé Eggs|date=2007-12-05|accessdate=2007-12-08] Its "surprise" was a miniature mechanical elephant, which could be wound with a small jewel-encrusted key.Citation|last=Farnham|first=Alan|title=Egg Hunting, Pro Division|date=2004-04-12|url=http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/0412/233.html|publisher=Forbes.com|accessdate=2007-12-08]

History

The Birch Egg was crafted in 1917 and was due to be presented by Nicholas to the Empress that Easter. Before the egg was delivered however, the February Revolution took place and Nicholas II was forced to abdicate on March 15. On April 25, Fabergé sent the Tsar an invoice for the egg, addressing Nicholas II as not as "Tsar of all the Russias" but as "Mr. Romanov Nikolai Aleksandrovich". Nicholas paid 12,500 rubles and the egg was sent to Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich at his palace for presentation to the Empress, but the Duke fled before it arrived. The egg remained in the palace until it was looted in the wake of the October Revolution later that year.

After the October Revolution the egg was acquired by the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow. It disappeared once again after the museum closed in January 1927 and was presumed lost. In 1999 Fabergé's great-granddaughter Tatiana published drawings of the designs for the Birch and Constellation Eggs, but it was assumed that they were both incomplete. The Birch Egg publicly reappeared in 2001 when a private collector from the United Kingdom, the descendant of Russian emigrants, sold it to the State Historical Museum. The complete purchase, which cost the museum "millions of dollars", consisted of the egg itself, the case, the wind-up key for the surprise, Fabergé's original invoice to Nicholas II, and a letter from Fabergé to Alexander Kerensky complaining about not being paid and asking that the egg be delivered. The "surprise" itself was not in the collector's possession and was likely stolen by soldiers during the October Revolution. The egg remains on display at the museum to this day.

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