Lapis Lazuli Easter Egg (c. 1885–90): Art, History and Details

Lapis Lazuli Easter Egg (c. 1885–90) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Peter Carl Fabergé (Russian, 1846–1920); House of Fabergé (Russian, 1842–1918).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Peter Carl Fabergé became the crown jeweler to the imperial court of Russia in 1885 after he produced the very first Easter egg for Tsar Alexander III to give to his wife, Empress Marie Feodorovna. Fabergé created his celebrated Easter eggs, symbols of rebirth and renewal, as gifts for the Russian imperial family every year until he had to leave the country in 1919 after the Russian Revolution. Made of gold and lapis lazuli from the Ural Mountains, this egg opens to reveal a compartment enameled to resemble an egg yolk, which contains yet another delightful surprise of an imperial crown holding a tiny ruby or pink sapphire on a chain.

Object facts

• Title: Lapis Lazuli Easter Egg
• Date: c. 1885–90
• Creator attribution: Peter Carl Fabergé (Russian, 1846–1920); House of Fabergé (Russian, 1842–1918)
• Culture: Russia, St. Petersburg
• Type: Miscellaneous
• Technique: gold, enamel, lapis lazuli, pearls, diamonds, rubies
• Dimensions: Overall: 5.9 x 4.5 cm (2 5/16 x 1 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1966.436

A detail from the museum

This egg may have been made for one of the tsar's relatives very early in the run of imperial Easter egg production by Fabergé.

Collection credit

The India Early Minshall Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hawley, Henry H. Fabergé and His Contemporaries: The India Early Minshall Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1967.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.