In 1949, it was sold for 1870 pounds ($5,236). In 1994, it was acquired anonymously at public auction by an American businessman for the record price of $5.587 million dollars. Auctioned again at Christie's, April 19 2002 the "Winter Egg" sold for $9.58 million.
In
1927 this egg was sold by the Antikvariat to Emanuel Snowman of Wartski Jewelers, London. In 1934 Wartski sold it to Lord Alington, London. In 1948
it was owned by the late Sir Bernard Eckstein and in 1949 it was sold by
Sotheby’s London to Bryan Ledbrook, UK. Around 1975 the egg disaperead
and was relocated in a London safe in 1994. In November 1994 the egg was
sold by Christie's Geneva on behalf of a trust to a telephone bidder,
acting for a US buyer. In 2002 Christie's New York sold it to the Emir
of Qatar.
Set on a Siberian rock crystal base shaped into a block of melting ice, the thinly carved, transparent rock crystal egg was delicately engraved and opens vertically to reveal a platinum basket of wood anemones – each flower carved from a single piece of white quartz.
The intrinsic value of the egg is comparatively quite low. The Winter Egg consists of two blocks of rock crystal – a couple of thousand dollars – a bit of platinum and some three thousand minute rose cut diamonds – another couple of thousand dollars. So all in all, if you break this egg up, what is it worth? Four or five thousand dollars.
