Twelve Monograms (Fabergé egg)

The Twelve Monograms egg, also known as the Alexander III Portraits egg, is an Easter egg made under the supervision of the Russian jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé in 1896 for Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.^[1] It was presented by Nicholas II to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. The egg was the second Fabergé egg ever given by Nicholas II to his mother as an Easter present.

Twelve Monograms/Alexander III Portraits Fabergé egg
Year delivered	1896
Customer	Nicholas II
Recipient	Maria Feodorovna
Current owner
Individual or institution	Hillwood Museum
Design and materials
Workmaster	Michael Perkhin
Surprise	Gold and sapphire-framed miniature portraits (whereabouts unknown)

This egg is one of four commemorating Tsar Alexander III. The other three are the Empire Nephrite egg (1902), the missing Alexander III Commemorative egg (1909), and the Alexander III Equestrian Egg (1910).

It is currently held in the Hillwood Museum in Washington, D.C., as part of the Marjorie Merriweather Post Collection.^[2]

Description

Each panel of the egg contains a Cyrillic cipher of Alexander III and Maria Fedorovna, set and crowned in diamonds, set against the dark blue enamel with a design of red gold, rose-cut diamonds, portrait diamonds and velvet lining. It is covered by six panels each divided by bands set with rose-cut diamonds and decorated with the Imperial crown and Imperial monograms (MF) "Maria Fyodorovna" and (AIII) "Alexander III". Each monogram appears six times, with Maria's monogram appearing on the top half of the egg and Alexander's appearing on the bottom.

Identification

An allegedly-missing Fabergé egg known from its description as the Alexander III Portraits Egg was previously thought to be the Imperial Easter egg from 1895 in the Maria Feodorovna series.

However, following the 2012 rediscovery of the 1887 Third Imperial egg, which was announced to the world in March 2014, and the reassignment of the Blue Serpent Clock egg as the 1895 Imperial Easter egg, it became clear that the "missing" Imperial Easter egg identified in the series as the Alexander III Portraits Egg must be the extant Twelve Monograms Egg of 1896.^[3][4][5]

The 1896 Twelve Monograms Egg is held at the Hillwood Museum in Washington, D.C.

Surprise

The missing surprise, a folding miniature frame. Wartski archival photo, London. Whereabouts unknown since 1980.

The surprise for this egg contained six portrait miniatures of Alexander III painted on an ivory background and mounted in a frame with sapphires.

For decades, the surprise was considered to be missing and no photographs, only an invoice, were known to scholars. However, a couple of independent Fabergé researchers claimed it has been identified in their article published in the Fabergé Research Newsletter Winter 2014.^[6] They found four different photographs of the surprise; a folding miniature frame (lacking the miniatures of Alexander III). Last known photo of the surprise published by Christie's Geneva in 1980. Whereabouts unknown.