Fabergé egg found by a scrap dealer going on display at the V&A

As part of an exhibition about the famous Russian jewellery maker, one of the ‘missing’ eggs created by Fabergé that was lost for many years will go on display in London.

The Fabergé egg appeared at an auction in New York in 1964, but was unrecognised and then disappeared until 2011, when it was bought at a flea market simply for its weight in gold to be melted down. The buyer, who tried several times to sell it for scrap later saw an image of the egg in a newspaper article, and contacted the antique jewellery firm Wartski who identified it as being an Imperial easter egg.

That flea market purchase was sold to a private collector for an undisclosed amount, estimated to be worth around £20 million. Its presence in the V&A exhibition will be the first time it has been seen in public since it was sold in 2014.

The exhibition at the V&A will also include around 200 other Fabergé works of art, and also tell the story of the less well-known shop that Fabergé set up in London — although viewers of the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow on 19th Sept will be more familiar with it now after jewellery specialist John Benjamin talked about a carved blue Opel by Alfred Pocock in a London Fabergé box, and it was so rare he struggled to value it.

The exhibition, Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution is at the V&A Museum from 20th November 2021 to 8th May 2022.

Tickets cost £18 and need to be booked in advance from here.