Karelian Birch (Fabergé egg)
1917 Imperial Fabergé egg
The Karelian Birch egg, also known as the Birch Egg, was an unfinished 1917 Easter egg designed under the supervision of Peter Carl Fabergé for the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, as an Easter gift to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. It was the second to last Fabergé egg made, before Constellation. Its present whereabouts is unknown.
The Birch Egg was due to be completed and delivered to the Tsar on Easter 1917. Before the egg was delivered however, the February Revolution took place and Nicholas II was forced to abdicate on 15 March.
A number of the Fabergé Imperial Easter eggs created during World War I, utilized less costly materials. However, the Karelian Birch egg was the only one to use an organic substance (wood) as a primary construction element.
History and description
Fabergé's eldest son, Eugène, told Henry Bainbridge (author of Peter Carl Fabergé. Goldsmith and Jeweller to the Russian Imperial Court, 1949) that as far as he could remember, the dowager empress’s 1917 Easter egg was to be of Karelian birch. This one-line reference was all that was known of it until Tatiana Fabergé uncovered new evidence in her family files.
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This entry incorporates text from “Karelian Birch (Fabergé egg)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.