Danish Palaces Egg

STATISTICS

Created: 1890 in St. Petersburg

The centuries-old tradition of bringing hand-dyed eggs to church to be blessed during the Easter midnight service, and then presenting them to family and friends, eventually evolved into the exchange of valuable Easter gifts among members of St. Petersburg society. At the command of Czar Alexander III, Peter Carl Fabergé would produce an Imperial Easter egg for Maria Fedorovna – and later also one for Czarina Alexandra – almost every year, until the fall of the Romanov dynasty.

The Danish Palaces egg (1890) opens to reveal a ten-panel screen of miniature paintings of royal residences and yachts. It must have be quite a delight for the Empress Marie, who had grown up in Denmark, to see all the wonderful places she lived in and loved during her childhood as a Danish princess. This egg is from the bequest of the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation on display at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

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