Imperial Eggs

Alexander III, Czar of all the Russias, was conferring with his court jeweler, Peter Carl Faberge, about what to give the Czarina for Easter. Faberge proposed an egg--wjth a surprise inside it. "What will the surprise be?" asked the Czar. With all due respect, Faberge refused to say.

At Easter time in 1884, the Czarina received what at first glance looked like an ordinary hen's egg, but the shell beneath its white enamel was of gold. Inside it was a golden yolk, and inside that a golden chick. In the chick's stomach was a model of the imperial crown, and inside the crown was a tiny ruby egg. It went over big. "Next Easter," the Czar informed Faberge, "we'll be wanting another surprise."

Vodka & Coffee. Last week seven such surprise eggs went on display in a Manhattan gallery. They highlighted a glittering show, drawn from museums and private collectors in the U.S., which had been arranged to coincide with publication of a handsome, expensive and definitive study of Faberge and all his works: Peter Carl Faberge (Batsford; $35). The exhibition included everything from coffee pots to vodka cups, from imperial seals to paper knives, and from jeweled flowers in crystal vases to a green jade Buddha that nodded its head and wagged its ruby tongue.

For craftsmanship and imagination, some of Faberge's works rivaled those of Benvenuto Cellini, but unlike Cellini, Faberge had been a 100% eclectic with a vast history of luxury arts to borrow from and exploit. While his best works were magnificently unique, his worst looked like refugees from a dime store bric-a-brac counter.

Pigs & Cigarettes. Born in Russia of a Huguenot family, Faberge had probably studied goldsmithing in Paris, but there was no evidence that he had done a lick of manual work on any of the works on exhibition. His genius was in his head and active enough to keep 700 artisans, mostly Finns, busy in his St. Petersburg workrooms. The imperial court was not Faberge's only customer: every millionaire in Russia clamored for his wondrous candlesticks and parasol handles. In time he produced enameled pigs for the court of King Chulalongkorn of Siam, Buddhas and bowls for his son, Rama VI, and a gold cigarette case which was presented to England's Queen Mary by the Maharaja of Bikanir. But his most ambitious work was the series of 50-odd surprise Easter eggs which he executed over three decades for Alexander III and Nicholas II.

The handsomest egg in last week's show was carved out of rock crystal. Inside it was a golden tree, and perched in the tree was a peacock which, when removed and placed on a table, strutted, turned its head, and folded and unfolded its fanlike emerald tail. The last Faberge egg to be presented to the Czarina (in 1916) was prophetically grim: made of blackened steel and poised on four bits of shrapnel, it contained only a miniature painting of the Czar and Czarevitch Alexis with staff generals on the Eastern front. Two years later the imperial family was to be shot to death in a cellar at Ekaterinburg, and in four years Faberge himself, possibly the last of the great luxury craftsmen, was to die in exile in Lausanne.

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