The Winter Egg sells for £23m
On 2 December 2025, the Winter Egg found its new custodian after a brisk three-minute bidding duel at Christie’s in London. This marks the third occasion on which the Winter Egg has set a record price for a Fabergé object. The hammer price was £19,500,000, which amounts to £22,895,000 with fees – the equivalent of $30.2 million. The piece was commissioned from Fabergé by Emperor Nicholas II as an Easter gift for his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, in 1913.
The egg is carved with remarkable finesse from rock crystal, its inner surface lightly engraved with a whisper of frost, while the exterior carries platinum snowflakes set with diamonds. It rests on a rock-crystal base shaped like a slowly melting block of ice. When opened, the reveals its quiet marvel: a tiny platinum basket, jewelled and delicate, filled with white-quartz wood anemones rising from a bed of gold moss – one of Fabergé’s legendary “surprises”.
View more details on the past auction on the Christie’s website.
