(MENAFN) A Fabergé Imperial ‘Winter Egg,’ originally commissioned for Russia’s final tsar, Nicholas II, achieved a record sale of £22.9 million ($30.2 million) at Christie’s in London on Tuesday, the auction house reported.

Christie’s stated that the public bidding lasted only around three minutes, and the identity of the buyer remains undisclosed.

Crafted in 1913, the egg was intended by Nicholas II as an Easter gift for his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna.

The piece is carved from rock crystal and adorned with platinum and rose-cut diamond snowflake designs, according to the auction house, resting on a base designed to resemble melting ice.

The egg contains a detachable “surprise”: a diamond-studded platinum basket featuring carved quartz wood anemones with nephrite leaves and garnet centers.

The final price surpassed Christie’s presale projection of over £20 million, a media outlet reported.

“This is one of (the) Imperial Easter Eggs created by Faberge for the Romanovs. And the Winter Egg is arguably the best of them all,” Margo Oganesian, head of Fabergé and Russian works of art at Christie’s, told the outlet.

Uniquely for its era, the ‘Winter Egg’ was designed by a female jeweler, Alma Pihl. Legend has it that Pihl, niece of Fabergé’s chief jeweler Albert Holmstrom, conceived the idea after observing ice crystals forming on a shop window in her workshop.

Fabergé’s gemstone-encrusted eggs were commissioned by Nicholas II and his predecessor, Alexander III, as Easter gifts for the imperial family.

Each creation generally required about a year to design and craft, with the tsars frequently commissioning a new extravagant egg shortly after receiving the previous one.

MENAFN03122025000045017167ID1110431538