This rare original Faberge miniature egg pendant was made in St. Petersburg between 1908 and 1917.
The egg is crafted in silver and 14K gold. It features three colors of translucent guilloche enamel and a band of white opaque enamel. The lower part of the egg is covered with a superb strawberry red guilloche enamel. Faberge is renowned for his brilliantly colored guilloche enamels for which he was awarded the Grand Prix at Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900.
Multi color guilloche enamel eggs are very rare and significantly more expensive than single color eggs. Enamel is a glass like substance which has to be fired in a kiln at high temperatures in order to be hardened. Each color of enamel has its own baking temperature. Therefore, when an egg has several colors of enamel, it dramatically increases the production time and complicates the process of enameling. When an item is baked in a kiln several times at different temperatures, the chances of enamel being ruined by heat is high. If that happens, the enameler would have to start over the whole process from scratch.
The egg is marked with 56 zolotnik old Russian gold standard (14K), St. Petersburg assay mark, and workmaster’s initials ‘ФА’ for Feodor Afanasiev.
Height without suspension ring is 16 mm (5/8 in.)
