Photo: GV
TWO IMPERIAL FABERGE EGGS
THE TREASURY, THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM
How did these magnificent mementos of a vanished age make it to Baltimore? Both eggs remained treasured possessions of Russia’s imperial family until 1917, but after that year – after the Revolution –, they disappeared.
More than a decade later, in 1930, the building superintendent of what was then the private “Walters Art Gallery,” was checking the contents of a crate containing the artworks Henry Walters had purchased on his last trip to Paris. The manifest listed two items which, in the most humble way, eventually proved to be of extraordinary interest – and value (quote): “one egg in white enamel with a ring of little enameled pearls … modern” and “one copper egg decorated with enameled roses, modern.”
“Orphaned” and unknown then, the Gatchina Palace and Rose Trellis Imperial Easter Eggs have since come to be recognized as among the greatest treasures of the Walters Art Museum.
Filed in: Art, Baltimore, Henry Walters, Museums, The Walters, Uncategorized.
Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Art Museum since 1994, has been with the Baltimore institution for more than 20 years. A native of Minnesota, Gary received his B.A. from Carleton College in 1967 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1976 before working as Senior Associate for Byzantine Art Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.