# The Rothschild Faberge Egg > House of Faberge, Saint Petersburg - 1902 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/house-of-faberge/rothschild-faberge-egg/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-28 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** House of Faberge, Saint Petersburg - **Date:** 1902 - **Medium:** Gold, translucent rose-pink guilloche enamel, rose-cut diamonds, oriental pearls, and a concealed clockwork movement and automaton mechanism - **Dimensions:** Approximately 27 cm high on its circular base - **Object type:** Goldsmith's work - **Period:** Russian, Faberge firm, reign of Nicholas II - **Current location:** State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A gold and rose-pink enamel egg of 1902, made by the House of Faberge under workmaster Michael Perkhin, that opens on the hour to release a diamond-set cockerel which flaps, nods, crows and retracts before a concealed clock strikes the bell. It was never an Imperial commission. Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild gave it as an engagement present to Germaine Halphen, who married Beatrice's brother Baron Edouard de Rothschild in 1905, and it stayed in that family for a century. Who ordered it from Faberge is not documented: Christie's states that no surviving documentary evidence records an order for this egg, as is the case for all private Faberge commissions, and the gift and the giver are known from a codicil of 22 March 1958 to the recipient's will.Christie's London sold it on 28 November 2007 for a combined 8,980,500 pounds, a record at the time for any Russian work of art, any Faberge object and any timepiece at auction. The buyer, the Russian collector Alexander Ivanov, later gave it to President Vladimir Putin, who presented it to the State Hermitage Museum in December 2014 as a 250th-anniversary gift. A British and German tax investigation into the VAT treatment of Ivanov's purchase had raided his Baden-Baden museum about a week before that presentation.It is routinely confused with a different object, the 1904 Kelch Chanticleer egg, which shares the same cockerel-and-clock mechanism, the same workshop and a near-identical date, but was made two years later for an entirely different family. The two eggs are not the same object and this record treats them as such. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1902** House of Faberge, workshop of Michael Perkhin `[documented]` (manufacture and commission) Made in 1902 and commissioned by Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild as an engagement gift for Germaine Halphen, who was to marry Beatrice's brother, Baron Edouard Alphonse James de Rothschild. Not an Imperial commission and not made for the Kelch family. - **1902-1905** Germaine Halphen `[documented]` (gift) Received as an engagement present. Halphen married Edouard de Rothschild in 1905. - **1905-2007** The Halphen-Rothschild family `[unknown]` (retention by descent) Reported as having remained in the same family for roughly a century and sold in 2007 by descendants, but no source consulted names the individual family members who held it or gives dates for transfers within the family across this century. - **2007-10** Christie's, Moscow exhibition `[documented]` (pre-sale public exhibition) First shown publicly at a Christie's exhibition in Moscow ahead of the London sale. - **2007-11-28** Alexander Ivanov `[documented]` (purchase at auction) Bought at Christie's London for a combined 8,980,500 pounds. Ivanov stated the egg would go into a private museum he was building in Moscow. Sold with full provenance documentation and an export licence. - **2007-2014** Alexander Ivanov, displayed at the Faberge Museum, Baden-Baden `[documented]` (private ownership and exhibition) Ivanov claimed a VAT exemption of approximately 600,000 pounds on the basis the egg was shipped directly to Russia; British investigators later suspected it had instead been routed through Germany and displayed at Ivanov's Baden-Baden museum, a claim the museum's director denied to the extent of calling it only a brief exhibition loan before the egg was returned to Moscow. - **2014-12-08-present** State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg `[documented]` (gift) Presented by President Vladimir Putin at the Hermitage's 250th-anniversary reception, with Alexander Ivanov named as the donor. The Hermitage's reported credit line reads: gift of the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin, through the donor A.N. Ivanov. Documented as a completed gift, not a loan. Last confirmed on display in Room 302 of the General Staff Building as of January 2019. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **2007-11-28** Christie's, London, - Estimate: GBP 6,000,000 - 9,000,000 - Hammer: GBP 8,000,000, per source 4 (reported as approximately USD 16.5 million) - With premium: GBP 980,500, the difference between source 4's hammer price and the published total of GBP 8,980,500; no source consulted itemises the premium as a rate or percentage - Source 4 (Mieks) is the only source consulted that separates the hammer price, GBP 8,000,000, from the total including buyer's premium, GBP 8,980,500. The other sources consulted (Wikipedia, skyjems.ca, and contemporary press) report only the combined total of GBP 8,980,500 and describe it explicitly as inclusive of commission; none of the sources consulted labels GBP 8,980,500 as a hammer price. Contemporary press converted the hammer price to approximately USD 16.5 million and the total to approximately USD 18.5 million (also reported as EUR 12.5 million). The sale set records at the time for the highest price paid at auction for any Russian work of art, any Faberge object, and any timepiece. ## Open questions - Who specifically held the egg within the Halphen-Rothschild family between Germaine Halphen's era and the 2007 sale, and when did it pass between them? No source consulted names individual holders or dates in this span. - Was a UK export licence application or a Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art case ever opened for this object after the 2007 sale? No source consulted documents one, despite a direct search; the sale is instead reported as having proceeded with an export licence already in place. - Who was the underbidder at the 2007 sale? Not named in any source consulted. - How was the 2014 UK and German VAT investigation into Alexander Ivanov's Baden-Baden museum resolved? No source consulted reports a conclusion. - Does the egg carry a Hermitage inventory or accession number? Not published in the sources consulted. - Has the egg remained on permanent display since it was last confirmed in Room 302 of the General Staff Building in January 2019? No later confirmation was found. ## Sources - [1] Wikipedia, 'Rothschild (Faberge egg)'. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with a Hermitage catalogue entry or a Christie's sale catalogue. - [2] Wikipedia, 'Alexander Ivanov (art collector)'. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with primary reporting on Ivanov's collection and the Hermitage donation records. - [3] Mieks Faberge Eggs, '1902 Rothschild Clock Egg'. - [4] Mieks Faberge Eggs, '2007 Sale of the Rothschild Faberge Clock Egg'. - [5] Antiques and The Arts Weekly, 'Discovered Rothschild Faberge Egg Brings $18.5 Million At Christie's'. - [6] The Moscow Times, 'Rothschilds' Egg Set to Crack Faberge Record' (2007). - [7] The Moscow Times, 'Putin Gives Faberge Egg to Hermitage for 250th Anniversary' (9 December 2014). - [8] The Moscow Times, 'British Tax Agents Raid Museum in Search of Putin's Faberge Egg, Report Says' (12 December 2014). - [9] Prospect Magazine, 'Should we confiscate the Faberge eggs?'. - [10] skyjems.ca, 'Rothschild Egg - Faberge's Lost-and-Found Banking-Family Easter Egg'. Tertiary, commercial encyclopaedia source; flagged for replacement with a museum or scholarly catalogue entry. - [11] Wikipedia, 'Kelch Chanticleer (Faberge egg)'. Tertiary source, used only for the comparison object, not for facts about the Rothschild egg itself. - [12] Artnet News, via search summary, 'Tax Agents Raid Faberge Museum'; corroborated by The Moscow Times (source 8) for the VAT dispute figures. - [13] Wikipedia, 'Perkhin, Michael'. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with a scholarly monograph on Faberge's workmasters. - [14] Wikipedia, 'Peter Carl Faberge', for the firm's founding, nationalisation and the 1914 remark on expensive materials. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with a primary interview source for the quotation. - [15] Wikimedia Commons, Category:Rothschild (Faberge egg), and file-level licence metadata for the images used in this record. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.