made in St. Petersburg between 1899 and 1904 by Bolin, jeweler of the Russian Imperial court.

The egg is carved from a Siberian rhodonite. It is surmounted by a two-tone gold openwork “cap” which is embellished with four small rubies .

Rhodonite was an exotic and fashionable stone in Imperial Russia. Major jewelers of the Tsarist court like Faberge, Bolin and Koehly used rhodontine in their jewelry and objet d’art.

The egg is marked with 56 zolotnik old Russian gold standard (14K), initials ‘ЯЛ’ for St. Petersburg assay master Yakov Liapunov, and initials ‘AK’ for Bolin’s workmaster A. Karpenko.

Length without suspension ring is 18 mm (3/4 in.)