Original subtitles

[Music]

at an antique store in london a

remarkable discovery has been made that

has thrown light on the bloody end of

the czars of russia and the birth of the

soviet union

well it was a miracle we were here at

warziki and in through that very door

behind you walked a gentleman he was the

most unassuming unpre-possessing

individual but in his hands he had a

sheaf of photographs

[Music]

this mysterious stranger had pictures of

a lost treasure made by the legendary

carl faberge

a master jeweler and favorite of the

russian imperial court

[Music]

like the romanovs faberge himself would

ultimately be a victim of the terrifying

russian revolution

and one of his greatest creations would

go missing for a century

having to survive two world wars and a

precarious trip to america before

pictures of it finally made their way to

london

this has been the target of our dreams

for so long that i recognize it

instantaneously but of course as an

antique dealer your first reaction is no

you doubt everything but looking at the

images and then looking at him it had to

be true

50 imperial faberge eggs are known to

have been made could one of the missing

ones have finally been found

of course we couldn't confirm that until

we'd handled the object itself

saint petersburg russia

it was in 1917 in this elegant city on

the baltic sea that the story of the

carl faberge company and their legendary

imperial eggs came to a crashing end

this is where you made them

workshops downstairs

we design

we used to design our products in here

the eggs

not just commissions from his majesty

citizen

romanov

citizen romanov

it's a time capsule it's a it's a portal

i mean in russian history we have this

fault line of 1917 and each and every

one of these pieces catapults us back to

that time when there were beautiful

grand duchesses a hemophiliac heir a

mystical rasputin and all of these

people who were annihilated i saw them

once the eggs

i was a boy

my grandfather took me to your

exhibition

each one of these pieces tie us back to

an aristocracy

a religion

a system of uh governing that's that's

absolutely gone and they're the only

tangible evidence that these people ever

lived he was up bloody sunday

your friend's imperial guard shot him

right here

he was just an old man

i wish i'd smashed the x when i'd had

the chance

so how had it all gone so horribly wrong

for faberge and the aristocracy that

adored him and just what happened to the

faberge eggs the story begins in the

same city where it ended

saint petersburg

[Music]

the faberge family originally came out

from france they were refugees from the

um repeal of the edict of nance that's

to say they were huguenots

protestants being persecuted by louis

xiv and they flooded eastwards from

there carl faberge known sometimes as

peter carl because he was christened

that born in 1846 schooled in the german

school in st petersburg his father owned

a small jewelry shop it was a small

jewelry shop but in a smart area his

father clearly had an eye for carl

becoming something greater than just the

jeweler he had been faberge had such

extraordinary talent

and his workshop was so extraordinary

the other thing is that he could be

considered a foreign citizen but being

foreign in saint petersburg was not at

all unusual it was a very very

cosmopolitan city he very much planned

his education to give him an exposure to

western art to some of the great

jewellery treasures around europe

the training that he received when he

was abroad with his family studying the

collections of museums in paris and

london and returned to russia and at the

tender age of 26 takes over his father's

firm

in russia at the end of the 19th century

though one had to get the attention of

the tsar to really make a name for

yourself and that was especially the

case at the time of the autocratic

alexander iii alexander iii was so

horrified by his own father who was

generally a liberal and a progressive

he'd he decided to reverse every reform

on the other hand there's quite a lot to

be said for alexander iii he was almost

the only russian leader never to declare

war on another country he was also an

extremely brave and powerful man perhaps

his major mistake was not preparing his

son nicholas ii

to rule

carl faberge implemented a plan that

would eventually catch the eye of this

imperious tsar he started working on

restoring ancient scythian jewellery

which had recently been excavated from

the black sea

he works on a volunteer basis at the

amitaj appraising

and

repairing objects without invoicing the

court and it all really paid off for him

in 1882 there was an exhibition of

russian art which faberge exhibited and

what he was exhibiting was pieces

derived from those scythian artifacts

which appealed hugely to the russian

public because they gave the impression

that russia had this

art-rich pre-history to compete with

anything in the west that exhibition was

visited by the russian royal family and

the tsarina marie fedorovna

bought the tsar a pair of cufflinks from

the faberge stand

cufflinks with a cicada

motif so that was the

first time he sold something to the

russian royal family this brings him

favor because in 1885 he's awarded the

imperial warrant

having been awarded the coveted imperial

warrant carl faberge starts work on what

would be the beginning of a long line of

easter gifts

the first hen egg

the first imperial egg was presented in

1885 by the tsar alexander iii to his

wife mary fedorovner

it's a deceptively simple egg and i

think it's a great microcosm of what

faberge does so well it's white enamel

on the outside it's a gold yolk on the

inside represented a chicken you open it

up inside you find a golden yolk

you can open up the yolk and inside that

you find a golden hen

inside was an imperial crown and a

pendant so it was like it was like a

matrix you know one of these russian

dolls he was probably wanting something

to delight her something to amuse her

what better way to celebrate 20 years of

marriage and easter in one

and led to a commission an ongoing

rolling commission that lasted uh 33

years clearly that first day worked and

each year the emperor would give the

empress an easter egg from faberge

famously fabijay started to get total

autonomy in the designs

and

with only three commands that

each gift should be egg shaped

that each one should be different from

any predecessor and that each one should

contain something of it a surprise

something that would delight the empress

carl faberge would quickly become a

favorite of the russian royal family

but neither they nor he saw the huge

changes which were coming to the russian

empire that would leave both faberge and

his incredible imperial eggs in great

peril

[Music]

towards the end of the 19th century

master jeweler carl faberge had become a

firm favorite of the russian tsar

alexander iii and his wife the zarina

marie fiodarovna

his one-of-a-kind imperial eggs had

become a highlight of the easter

celebration

in 1890 he presented the exquisite

danish palace's egg complete with a

surprise of folding miniatures

this was followed by the memory of azov

egg which commemorated a voyage taken by

the future tsar nicholas ii on the

armored russian cruiser the azov

where he narrowly survived an

assassination attempt in japan

the diamond trellis egg made from pale

jadeite was presented in 1892

and was followed by the caucasus egg of

translucent ruby enamel in 1893

[Music]

the renaissance egg of 1894 would prove

to be the last presented by tsar

alexander iii to his wife marie

that same year the tsar suddenly fell

ill with an incurable kidney disease

and he died at the age of only 49.

the sudden death of the tsar left his

son the terribly unprepared nicholas ii

to take the throne

and things got off to a dreadful start

when at a celebration of his coronation

at kadinka fields near moscow a stampede

killed over 1300 people

the public at large was not impressed

with nicholas's response to the tragedy

he was doomed after the kadinka fields

catastrophe he wasn't strong like his

father he wasn't expecting to be tsar he

was only in his twenties he had kept a

iron grasp on the people and then um

nicholas comes along and he's a bit more

diffident

to begin your coronation with a mass

death of the population is bad and then

worse still he should go to a ball at

the french embassy on the same day of

this disaster

so that uh in fact

did his prestige and enormous damage

which he never recovered his strength

and his weakness was that he was

slightly normal and he rather liked

normal life

he liked chopping wood being with his

family and

smoking which he did

a lot of the time

fortunately for faberge though nicholas

continued the tradition of imperial

easter eggs and in fact two were now

requested each year

one for nicholas's mother the now

dowager empress and one for the new

zarina alexandra who unfortunately was

just as unpopular as the tsar

sarina alexandro came from the small

german court of darmstadt

and she was known as the german one

that was a problem for her to get over

to start with some russian empresses

have overcome this

but she was extremely tactless she was

convinced that russia should be an

absolute monarchy and she pushed her

husband and she had extremely bad

judgment she didn't enjoy balls and

dances she thought that the russian

aristocracy were very decadent meanwhile

the dowager had been very fun-loving it

was very popular the the tsarina had a

hard act to follow and she didn't really

manage

the first pair of eggs given was in 1895

when zarina alexandra received the

rosebud egg and the dowager received the

blue serpent clock egg this egg would

eventually end up in monaco where it

became a treasured possession of

princess grace queen elizabeth and

prince philip take the royal drive along

the superb course princess grace and

prince renier are guests

three other eggs also ended up in royal

possession becoming the property of

queen elizabeth ii the colonnade egg the

basket of flowers egg and the stunning

mosaic egg it seems that faberge has

always been a favorite of royalty right

from the days of his very first royal

client the dowager empress marie

fiordarovna

christ is risen he is risen indeed

you look well master jeweller i

persevere your majesty yes

you are a wonderful reminder to the

court that our generation is not passed

quite yet

we persevere indeed i think fabij had an

intimate relationship with virtually

every member of the imperial family

their relationships and their loves

their passions their lusts and so on

were expressed through the exchanges of

these gifts so all of the emotions which

you know are treasured in in them as

these historical figures coalesced into

these faberge objects on behalf of his

imperial majesty it is the great honor

of the carl faberge company to present

this year's easter gift

maria fjodorovna was unlike nicholas's

second's wife she had extraordinary

charm

once she was the dowager empress she was

the most respected member of the of the

royal family the dowager was generally

more charming and outgoing than the

sarina and she had established a good

relationship with faberge he had

obviously

prepared the surprises very well she'd

always liked them

[Music]

mary fedorovner she was essentially the

same age as him she was his original

client she received those original legs

and there are certainly letters from her

for example for her sister who has our

own queen alexandra here in the uk uh in

which she said fabijay brought the worst

wonderful egg i told him you're a genius

clearly she liked him i hope her majesty

is pleased

my dear dear faberge

you truly are an unparalleled genius

faberge's connection with the imperial

family was the ultimate cachet and his

workshop was soon producing an array of

items for other european aristocratic

families he even opened up an

international store in london that idea

of a feudal society if it was the

fascination of the court it quickly

became the fascination of every level of

society the aristocracy the the traders

the bankers the entrepreneurs they would

all want to participate in that royal

fascination and it wasn't just in russia

in england exactly the same thing

happened fashions such as

cigarette smoking came to the fore

fabricated responded very quickly to

this with cigarette cases when you open

this you have not only the um case

itself

and the characteristic

thumb piece here it opens to reveal a

signature and a date

so this is when a cigarette case is not

only a cigarette case but it's a case

that's been

purchased by a grand duchess as a gift

faberge is a russian company and they

were made in russia and they are

quintessentially russian it does have a

distinct english flavor and i think

there is perhaps more faberge within a

mile radius of where we're stood now

than there is in the entirety of russia

and america put together essentially uh

the london shop was started on the back

of commissions or requests for objects

from the british royal family and the

british royal family had learned to love

faberge

because of the relationship between mary

fedorovner and alexandra

edward the seventh and then queen

alexandra the sister of maria

theodorovna they were also fascinated by

faberge and as a consequence english

society became fascinated by faberge

there's a famous story of uh

i think he was by then edward vii being

given a present uh

by a friend uh saying actually i don't

particularly want this if you want to

buy me something go down to fabajay's

shop and look at it look at what he's

got

although the 50 imperial legs are

undoubtedly the most desired today

faberge did make other easter eggs for

paying customers including the wealthy

kelch family

if you were a russian lady of some

stature you would have chains of

miniature faberge eggs and then there

were eggs in between that were given the

size of hens eggs and there were various

types which are all marvelous and

they're all wonderful

the problem with making stuff for the

russian royal family was the bureaucracy

he had to deal with he did find it more

congenial making objects for the newly

emerging middle classes or very rich

middle classes i should say

two very prominent european families who

commissioned works from faberge were the

rothschilds and the nobels for whom the

nobel ice egg was made they were happy

to spend what it required happy to give

him carp lash and and to take what he

made for them and he made some fabulous

objects for them

faberge made two eggs every year during

nicholas ii's reign with the exceptions

of 1904 and 1905 when no eggs were

presented

during this period russia suffered a

disastrous defeat in the russo-japanese

war

1905 was an especially bad year with the

bloody sunday massacre being carried out

in some petersburg and the eventually

unsuccessful 1905 revolution

work on the eggs resumed in 1906 with

the swan egg with its automaton

miniature

carl faberge had brought his son agathon

into the company which now had over 500

employees

nephrite exterior

watercolor miniatures of the children

[Music]

father

you can do better

[Music]

when world war one broke out in 1914

russia was soon dragged in

and czar nicholas ii left the imperial

court to take charge of the armed forces

in response carl faberge made what would

turn out to be his last easter gift the

steel military egg

presented to the zarina alexandra it

contained a surprise of her husband and

son commanding the russian army

but nicholas ii was never suited to

being a military leader and russia was

grossly unprepared for the war effort

once the germans came to the help of the

austro-hungarians and pushed the russian

army back

and the soldiers found they had to go

into uh into battle with no boots no

rifle and were told to take it off the

first corpse they found then the whole

thing fell apart once housewives came

out of their houses banging saucepans

because there was no bread then the tsar

had to go

the imperial family were offered an

exile in england but all the children

were ill

they all had measles

and there was also the thought that the

situation wasn't as grave as people were

making out so they delayed

their departure george v who was a

cousin of the tsar took away his offer

it was considered safer to uh take them

to siberia

however the revolutionary bolshevik

forces led by lenin managed to capture

the tsar the tsarina and their children

and take them to the city of

ekaterinburg where they came to a grisly

end nikolai alexandrovich in view of

your relative continuing attacks on

soviet russia the euro executive

committee has ordered that you are to be

executed

[Music]

the reason that they were

executed was really because

where they were kept in the urals the

white army was approaching

and the reds feared perhaps justified if

the whites captured them again they

would have something to rally the

country around once you got the tsar

back

and i think the panicky execution was

not due entirely to sheer brutality but

just to deny the the the opposition in

the civil war as an important symbolic

figure there's a certain amount of

obfuscation about it i think because um

perhaps lenin at various points thought

it wouldn't be good for him to be named

as the killer of the whole family so

there's also dispute over who gave

orders for the tsar and sarina to be

killed and who

gave orders for the whole family to be

killed lenin definitely sanctioned it i

mean the brutality of the revolution the

civil war was so horrific that the

deaths of the stars fit in with the

deaths of millions of others who were

shot tortured drowned

and so on

the murder of the russian royal family

meant that carl faberge's life was

hanging in the balance and his amazing

collection of works was in danger of

being lost forever

which makes the recent rediscovery of

one of his imperial eggs all the more

miraculous

[Music]

in july 1918 the russian royal family

was executed and all their possessions

seized by the new soviet state

[Music]

carl faberge very much a part of the now

extinct imperial russia was in danger of

meeting a similar end

[Music]

i saw them once

the eggs

i was a boy

my grandfather took me to your

exhibition

i had pestered him about it for weeks

did you have a favorite

in the early 1900s he built a

purpose-built headquarters in some

petersburg with the shop on the ground

floor floors above that included

essentially workshops where

a lot of the jewelry happened although a

lot of the other more specialist work

would happen in other workshops outside

and then on floors above that the design

studio

one ruble 10 copics it costs to get in

you wouldn't even bend down in the

street to pick that up would you

one ruble

i didn't know that was more than he made

in a week

he was at bloody sunday

it's estimated that the faberge

enterprised enterprise well he had

workshops in petersburg and in moscow

moscow was where they made silver

uh he had shops uh and those two places

also odessa which was a popular tourist

destination and london which dealt with

most of his international business

and total employees either working for

or indirectly for faberge probably about

1500 at its height your friend's

imperial guard shot him

right here

he was just an old man

i wish i'd smashed the x when i'd had

the chance they had a first stage

revolution a parliamentary government

but it couldn't end the war

and it couldn't continue the war the

officers wouldn't stop fighting the

soldiers wouldn't go and fight

and finally a small group of highly

organized men the bolsheviks

understood how to make a revolution

i wish many things were different

comrade lenin back in exile you mean

bloody nicholas in his palace

[Music]

they understood you don't have to have

large numbers you just take the railway

junction and the telephone exchange once

you hold those two everyone else is

paralyzed

uh so you could say to lenin's

and trotsky's highly intelligent methods

for a small group to take over a large

country that finished that stage of the

revolution

you're all looters

war profiteers parasites growing fat

while the working man dies

but you don't make the world anymore

[Music]

time to go citizen

famously the bolsheviks arrived

at fabijay's business uh to take it over

he said just give me a minute to fetch

my hat and coat and essentially slipped

out the back

soon afterwards he

was uh smuggled out of some petersburg

uh he ended up in switzerland

uh but he was clearly broken by the

events of the revolution he was not

placed under arrest nor was he dragged

to catrionberg and shot or any of his

family members so

his destiny was very different

his holdings were nationalized and

eventually found his way to lausanne

having traveled with his clothes and

apparently a collection of wine and died

in lausanne in 1920.

faberge wasn't the only one who escaped

though the dowager empress also managed

to flee the revolution despite having

been a zarina herself

she along with other members of her

family were taken to safety aboard the

british battleship hms marlborough

george v felt very guilty when he heard

obviously this terrible tragedy he made

great efforts to get the dowager out and

that's our sister senior and all seniors

children

the local reds never got round to

executing members of the royal family

they were too much of a hurry defending

themselves and so she managed to get out

on a british battleship on the mulberry

prince felix yusipoth who murdered

rasputin had two rembrandts and he was

seen on deck with them rolled up under

his arm

uh there was the faberge egg the cross

and george down in the hold and the

youth pubs also had other treasures

20 million pounds worth of um jewels and

treasures on on board so quite an

extraordinary

amount

the crosses and george egg was the last

faberge egg presented to the dowager

empress by taking it with her it became

the only imperial easter egg known to

have left russia with its owner

carl faberge may have escaped to

switzerland but his son agathon who'd

become a key part of the faberge company

was not so lucky and remained in the now

soviet russia i think a lot of the

enterprise and dealing within faberge's

world was conducted by agatha and i

think he did exactly the same after the

revolution as he had done before and he

was a conduit himself for the movement

of objects out of russia to the west and

in fact in watsky's ledgers

there are um references to us buying

objects from faberge and the february

was agathon fabishe agathon faberge

managed to escape soviet russia himself

in 1927 but he had left behind one of

the unfinished eggs due to be given to

the romanoffs in 1917. it was found

essentially in the firsman mineralogical

museum in moscow

they thought it was a lamp stand it is

actually an egg-shaped

uh bit of polished blue gas on a funny

sort of cloud-shaped uh bit of other

glass

they now know in fact that that was

going to be the egg for alexander

fedorovna

the story of the blue zarovich

constellation egg reveals the precarious

times that faced the imperial treasures

after the russian revolution

both lenin and stalin authorized the

sale of many of russia's greatest works

of art to fund the soviet programmes

the revolution brought the bolsheviks to

power

even

if there hadn't been economic collapse

as well it would have changed everything

economic collapse as well just made it

all even worse there was so much russian

art and you could argue that in fact

russia had plundered all europe in the

18th century catherine the great we

got an enormous amount of stuff from

impoverished english collectors and

aristocrats one of lenin's famous

commands was loot the looters that is to

say all these people have been

living the life of riley for the last

500 300 years

it is now our turn to loot them despite

the looting the smashing uh the rotting

away uh there's still the hermitage

gallery in petersburg can only display a

tiny fraction of what it has

countless works of art were sold abroad

including the faberge eggs and their

buyers were a very mysterious bunch they

included emmanuel snowman of watsky and

almond hammer of occidental petroleum

ahmed hammer is a fascinating character

and he was almost the joseph devine of

his day multi-millionaire capitalist who

alleges that he is in fact a communist

um

and then goes over and makes big deals

with with lenin he was not a communist

he was a capitalist through and through

he organized uh trunk shows through

department stores across america and

catered to

the way that women bought things and

made

vibrancy pieces accessible to

the american public ultimately he became

the agent for the sale

of russian works of art primarily almost

solely to america and so he was the

conduit from russia to america whilst

emmanuel snowmon was a conduit from

russia to western europe

a king's ransom in art joules gems from

the collection of the late czar of

russia on exhibition

treasure worth many millions procured

from the soviet government after the

revolution

armand hammer and emmanuel snowman were

two of the major figures who had

facilitated the movement of faberge eggs

to the west but one man who wanted to

gather them for himself was malcolm

forbes of forbes magazine he went on a

spending spree malcolm forbes was a

relative late calm and forbes was

possessed by a collecting mania he was

an obsessive collector i suppose um the

great thing about faberge eggs is there

are only what 50 imperial ones and

another

16

so you could you you could actually get

the lot it was one of those things where

you could find you had the complete

stamp collection

in a span of two decades malcolm forbes

managed to get his hands on nine

imperial faberge eggs in total

his ambition was always to have more

easter eggs than the kremlin

he never quite got there but he got very

close

while most of the imperial faberge eggs

were sold abroad for foreign currency

ten did remain in the kremlin armory and

have never left the country

and one of the great sort of stories and

unknowns of these eggs is that we know

exactly where they were in soviet times

we know where they were in imperial

times and we really know where they were

once they emerged in the west the

skullduggery and the mischief of those

original and first transactions we don't

know and so i feel as though there are

wonderfully sort of untold stories there

involving these sort of ravenous dealers

and sort of mischievous individuals

malcolm forbes determination to collect

as many faberge eggs as he could help

shoot up the price of these

one-of-a-kind treasures

when the winter egg went on sale in 2002

it was bought by a qatari bidder for 8.7

million dollars

700 dollars maria you've been related

my favorite egg is one that was given to

marie federovna in 1913

and that's one of the most striking

things about it is here we are almost 30

years after that first egg and you're

still getting wonderful creativity

it looks like you're looking through a

winter fog as you look through the egg

it's sitting on more carved rock crystal

which is polished so much that it looks

like melting ice

and then within the egg so you can see

it through a winter fog or open the egg

and lift it out as a little basket of

enamel flowers of springing enemies so

you've got a wonderful symbolism there

of spring scene through winter

in 2004 though malcolm forbes collection

of faberge eggs would make their way

back home to some petersburg when they

were purchased by the russian oligarch

victor vekselberg vexelbeck i think

spends on their 100 million dollars

getting

quite a large number of eggs back

they've gone back to the uh the faberge

museum in saint petersburg which

actually is a fabulous destination for

them whatever the mechanism of why they

got there where they have ended up is

the perfect home for them

for the longest time 42 imperial faberge

eggs were known to have survived the

russian revolution with just eight

remaining lost

but then out of the blue an american man

arrived at wartsky in london with

evidence that one of those eggs had been

found

[Music]

watsky in london is forever entwined

with the history of faberge so it's the

only place you would go if you thought

you'd found a missing imperial faberge

egg and that's exactly what an american

individual recently did

in walked a gentleman and he was the

most unassuming unpre-possessing

individual he was wearing a plaid

american shirt the quintessential red

plaid america shirt jeans he asked me by

name but when i came up he couldn't

actually speak to me his mouth was dry

with fear there was a sort of like

like a sort of inability to communicate

just a couple of years before a pair of

intrepid researchers looked through a

1964 catalogue of the auctioneers parker

bernay now a part of sotheby's within it

they discovered an image of the missing

third imperial faberge egg which have

been sold with everyone unaware of its

true origin the only other known image

of this egg is from the 1902 von dervis

mansion exhibition where many of the

faberge eggs had been displayed but this

new discovery proved that the egg had

made it to the west and there was now a

far clearer photograph of it

kieran mccarthy of watsky was part of an

article published by the daily telegraph

on this catalogue discovery which gave

some hope that the egg may turn up

someday now that it was proved to have

survived the russian revolution but

little did he know how quickly that

article would lead him to the egg itself

i went out to america as pretty much as

quickly as my feet and the wings would

carry me afterwards we traveled a long

way to a very remote path and i walked

into the kitchen of this house which is

a million miles from imperial st

petersburg

and sat on a kitchen counter there was

um a cupcake and next to it the the

missing easter egg

a google search had proved key in

bringing owner and expert together

he had no idea whatsoever that it was

faberge he had no concept that this was

a missing imperial egg and so he typed

into google of all things he typed

vacheron constantine and egg what came

up was all of the art historical

research which i and warski had been

involved in surrounding this egg and so

although the miracle of him walking

through our door one day it was a

miracle the actual link and the reason

why he walked through our door was that

research it proves that these eggs are

out there to find you know there were 50

eggs some of them were destroyed or

melted down or disappeared and we had

thought that eight were missing and

until recently uh that was the case and

then this this third egg

appeared

well the egg displays every wonder of

faberge's work the first is it's a very

simple construction it's a rooted gold

egg but the simplicity belies how

difficult it is to make each one of

these reeds is formed by hand by a

craftsman at a workbench they taper at

the same rate to an exact point both at

the bottom

and at the top

and when you press the diamond at the

front

it opens to reveal the watch by vacheron

constantine and this scrolling around

the bezel of the aperture where it's

there is found on many of them it's the

identical engravings on the cradle of

garland's egg and so you begin to see

these little sort of hints of what

faberge has done before and of how

fabulous craftsmen worked and another

aspect is when you flip the watch up it

sits

which is a beautiful little piece of

design which actually allows it to work

as not just an easter egg but as a clock

where you really see the absolute tour

de force of goldsmithing is not so much

in the simple egg but in the far more

elaborate stand four coloured gold roses

and roses are an emblem of love and so

the tsar and the tsarina when they saw

this would know that it was an

expression of love and then the lion

poor feet they're beautifully finished

on top and they are slightly stylized

but very sort of endearing lion's paws

but when you turn it over

and look at the base

the pads and the underside of the feet

are as beautifully represented

and of course the zarini would never

have seen that because it would have sat

like that

this is one of the most sophisticated

pieces of goldsmithing from faberge's or

anybody else's hands that has ever been

created and it would have been a gift

appropriate for us

but what of the seven imperial faberge

eggs that are still missing well one of

them is called the cherub with chariot

egg and it could be seen in the same

photograph from the 1902 von dervis

exhibition that featured the third

imperial egg

sitting sneakily behind the caucasus egg

you can see the wheel of the cherub with

chariot egg and can catch a glimpse of

it in the reflection of the glass casing

this artist's interpretation shows what

the egg could look like if you happen to

notice another 20 million pound treasure

at an antique store but this isn't the

only faberge egg of which we have but a

faint glimpse the fifth egg in the

series is known as the necessary egg and

it featured at a 1949 exhibition of

faberge eggs in london

london and a region street jewelers

becomes the setting for an exhibition of

the work of carl faberge that great

craftsman of tsarist russia

his son eugene faberge holds one of the

dual studied enamel and gold easter eggs

made for the last empress as a gift from

the tsar

kieran mcafee who was instrumental in

finding the third faberge egg has also

brought us closer to uncovering this one

when he found an image of it in the back

of a photograph taken at the exhibition

that's one of the most frustrating sort

of events in my life warski is ned wardy

and company and our ledgers are arranged

that on the left hand side it shows what

the object is and i looked across where

we have the name of the buyer the

address of the buyer and how much they

paid so i thought if mr bloggs lives a

full blog square i can go knock on four

blocks square and find the egg within

but i look across and it said a stranger

and and warski's discretion as it is

with this egg we cannot reveal who

bought or sold this egg and there is no

way of telling where it went the

exquisite work of a man who was caught

joella and goldsmith to russia's royal

house still mirrors the splendor of an

age that is no more although the

necessary egg featured at this

exhibition it was not known at the time

to be the fifth imperial easter egg the

necessary egg was never recognized as

the pure fabric but importantly it was

recognized as a faberge egg so this egg

here was never known to be faberge and

so because of that it was never likely

to be saved because it was faberge and

as a result this danced on the precipice

of the melting pot over and over again

it was sold to almost certainly an

english customer and it was only in 1952

so it is likely to have survived and

that one i i feel in my instinct has

survived of the five eggs where we've

got no trace of them coming to the west

it's possible that they'll emerge one

day it's equally possible that they were

destroyed in the whole chaos around the

revolution

despite the slim chances of discovery

there are photos of two of these five

most elusive faberge eggs the 1909

alexander the third commemorative egg

and the 1903 royal danish egg

oddly we also have the surprise of the

1897 move

but not the egg itself

the missing royal danish egg is the

intriguing one though as it was

presented to the dowager empress while

she was away at her original home of

copenhagen in 1903

it's not known for sure if she ever

brought the egg back to russia so it may

be the case that something is amiss in

the state of denmark

you just never know and that's partly

the mystery of them and i think that's

why this one this particular is so

significant because it is one of the

missing ones well it seems possible that

it might be there um she she wasn't very

keen to pass anything on when she was

alive and she used to say you can have

my treasure when i'm dead

so uh yeah it could be yes when you know

the history it becomes

rather blase i know that one i've seen

it there it was exhibited there and it

went there they paid so much they did

this it's the ones you don't know about

that actually excites the um the mind

and the fascination all seven of the

missing eggs are ones that were

presented to the dowager empress marie

fioda ravner it's known that she escaped

russia on the hms marlborough with the

crossups and george egg on board

the dowager took the egg with her

presumably to england i think then xenia

her daughter then vasily her youngest

son

ended up with it and then he sold it but

there's no reason why this should have

been the only egg she took with her it's

possible she packed up the empire

nephrite egg and move or any other of

the missing ones such as the second hen

egg with sapphire pendant these are the

only three eggs left of which we have no

images but that doesn't mean they're not

out there

it's like james dean it's like you know

if they if absolutely carried on and we

were now on the 1042nd faberge egg i

think they would not have the same

appeal but the fact that it's finite

that the glory of faberge is that it is

no more the reason we've all heard of

faberge today is because of the eggs

these great fabulous objects that he

started to make for the russian royal

family they are just so

over the top so wonderful so inspired

and their creativity as well they're

just wonderful objects

for combining history and

craftsmanship the extraordinary about

faberge is the very very expensive

materials use unique jewels the the

materials themselves are wealth beyond

the imagination then the extraordinary

craftsmanship the miniaturization of the

work

it's an oriental type of work it's very

very iranian indian

in its use of jewelry is the intricacy

faberge eggs sort of encapsulate the

romance of the of the story

so much um care gone into them they're a

product of the social cultural financial

political circumstances of that moment

and it's that collision of great

craftsmanship and uncompromising

patronage that gives rise to this

fascination refurbished

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