The Napoleonic Egg, 1912 — Fabergé's Centenary of 1812
The Napoleonic Egg, 1912 — Fabergé's Centenary of 1812
Imperial Easter egg commemorating Russia's victory over Napoleon, now at Hillwood
The Napoleonic Egg is the Imperial Fabergé egg presented by Tsar Nicholas II to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, at Easter 1912, marking the centenary of Russia's victory over Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Armée in the Patriotic War of 1812. The egg is one of fifty Imperial Easter eggs commissioned by the Romanov court between 1885 and 1916, and one of the small group whose history, surprise, and original presentation are fully documented and whose object survives intact. It is held today in the collection of Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, in Washington, D.C., the former home of Marjorie Merriweather Post.
Object and surprise
The egg is executed in green gold and translucent green enamel over a guilloché ground, with applied gold martial trophies — eagles, banners, weapons, and laurel wreaths — referencing the campaigns of 1812 to 1814. A diamond-set monogram of Empress Maria Feodorovna sits at one end and a portrait diamond of Alexander I, the Tsar who reigned during the Napoleonic Wars, is set at the other. The egg opens to reveal its surprise: a six-panel folding screen of miniature watercolours by court miniaturist Vasily Zuiev, depicting six regiments of the Imperial Guard of which Maria Feodorovna had been honorary colonel. Each miniature is framed in gold, and the screen folds neatly into the body of the egg.
The egg's overall height is 11.7 centimetres. The workmaster of record at the House of Fabergé was Henrik Wigström, who had succeeded Mikhail Perkhin in 1903 and was responsible for most of the late Imperial eggs. The miniatures are signed by Zuiev. The egg's original presentation case, made by Fabergé in oak with silk lining, has not been preserved.
Provenance
The Napoleonic Egg was presented at Easter 1912 and remained in the personal collection of Maria Feodorovna until the 1917 Revolution, when she carried jewels and personal possessions out of Russia via the Crimea and on to Denmark. After her death in 1928, her surviving jewels and personal objects were divided between her daughters, Grand Duchesses Xenia and Olga, and a substantial portion sold by them through the London market. The Napoleonic Egg passed through several private hands, including Emanuel Snowman's London house Wartski, before being acquired in 1949 by Marjorie Merriweather Post, the heiress to the Postum cereal fortune and a major collector of imperial Russian art.
Post installed her Russian collection at Hillwood, her Washington estate, and at her death in 1973 the property and its contents passed to a foundation that operates Hillwood as a public museum. The Napoleonic Egg is a centrepiece of the Hillwood Russian galleries and is on continuous display.
The 1812 commemoration in Russian art
The 1912 centenary of the 1812 war was a major occasion in Russian public life. Public monuments, military reviews, and commissioned art works marked the year, and the imperial family's commemorative gifts — including this egg — sit within that broader cultural moment. Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, written in 1880, had already established the public musical vocabulary of the commemoration; the architectural completion of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, finished in 1883, had given it a Moscow monument. The Napoleonic Egg is the most personal of the imperial 1812 commemorative objects.
Position among the Imperial eggs
Forty-three of the fifty Imperial eggs are accounted for; seven remain lost. The Napoleonic Egg is among the better-documented of the surviving eggs, with its original Fabergé invoice and the workshop ledger entries preserved in archival sources used by Fabergé scholars including Géza von Habsburg, Marina Lopato, and Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm. The egg's military and dynastic iconography make it a frequent subject in the literature on Romanov self-representation in the late imperial period.
In the trade and museum world
Imperial Fabergé eggs do not turn over in the open market with any regularity. The last Imperial egg sale was the Rothschild Egg in 2007 and the recently surfaced Third Imperial Egg in 2014; both events were generational. The Hillwood egg's institutional ownership and the Hillwood Foundation's policy of long-term preservation mean the Napoleonic Egg is unlikely to come to market. Visitors to Hillwood see it in its original folding-screen configuration, with the miniatures fully visible.