Last week, I had the chance to visit the "Fabergé: Jeweler to the Tsars" exhibit that is showing at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. I did not take that many photos, thinking that the museum gift shop would have a book about the exhibit that I could purchase. Strangely, they didn't...I was very disappointed!
The exhibit features four Imperial Easter Eggs, plus many Faberge picture frames, carved animals, cigarette and snuff cases. They are on loan from the Virginia Museum of Art. If you have the opportunity to travel to Oklahoma City, I highly recommend you block off about two hours to see the exhibit. It runs until September.
The first egg you see in the exhibit is the "Pelican Egg". At first, I was disappointed that the egg did not have the "surprise" with it, but then I learned that the egg itself is the surprise as it is actually a series of pictures on hinges that open up from the egg itself and then will fold back to the egg shape.
The Pelican Egg was presented by Nicholas II to his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna on Easter 1898. It was made of red gold and the pelican on top features diamonds.
The next egg was the Peter the Great Egg.
This egg was made in 1903 and was presented to Czarina Alexandra Fyodorovna. It was a little bit bigger than the Pelican Egg and is also much more elaborate in design.
The surprise is a miniature of the Peter the Great statue in St. Petersburg.
The third egg was my favorite. It is the Tsarevich Egg. It is amazing! It's made out of several different sections of lapis lazuli, but it looks like it is just carved out of one larger piece. You can really see the amazing craftsmanship on this piece.
It was created in 1912 for Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna. The surprise (which I was amazed that it somehow fits in the egg) is just beautiful.
It features a double sided portrait of Alexi, along with lots of diamonds. The picture does not do justice to the amount of glitter and sparkle the surprise has!
The last egg was the Imperial Red Cross with Portraits.
It was presented to the Dowager Empress in 1915, during the Great War. Because of that, the design is not nearly elaborate as some of the other eggs, but it was still impressive.
The surprise is a series of portraits of Imperial ladies who had connections with the Red Cross.
Also in this room were many Faberge picture frames, many with the original images in them. Unfortunately, the display information focused on the materials used in the frames (gold, silver, diamond, sapphires, etc...) and failed to identify who was in the picture. I had a very hard time trying to remember which Grand Duchess was which, so identification on the display would have helped my foggy memory. I was so focused on viewing all the images that I didn't take any pictures of the frames.
on August 3, 2015, 10:30 am
