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Faberge Revolving Miniatures Egg
 Date: 1896
Banded in diamonds and translucent emerald enamel, it is
surmounted by a rare Siberian emerald weighing 27 karats, cun en cabochon and pointed.
On a plinth of rock crystal, the double
spheroidic base in contrastingly colorful enamels, twice circled with
diamonds, is designed with monograms of the Tsarina, as the Princess Alix
of Hesse-Darmstadt, before her marriage, and later as Aleksandra
Feodorovna, Empress of Russia. Above these appears a series of diamond crowns of the respective royal houses.
Within the egg twelve signed miniatures by Zehngraf, framed in
gold and controlled by the emerald at the apex, revolve on a columnar
axis. These, showing the royal residences in Germany, England and Russia
associated with the life of the Tsarina, include views of palaces in and
near Darmstadt, Hesse; Balmoral and Windsor Castles, and Osborne House in
the British Isles; the Winter, Antichkov and Aleksandr Palaces of Russia.
 
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