Faberge egg auctioned for $18.5 million

A previously unrecorded Faberge egg fetched nine million pounds ($18.5 million) on Wednesday, setting an auction record for the jeweler, any Russian art object and any timepiece. The translucent pink egg contains a clock and animated cockerel and had never been seen in public before the sale was announced.

A spokesman for Christie's said a tense auction room burst into applause when the hammer went down. The piece, not publicly documented when it was made in 1902 for the Rothschild family, went to an unidentified private Russian buyer, he added.

Anthony Philips, a Christie's director, called the egg "one of the very best of Faberge's greatest creations,"

Faberge's eggs have become a byword for opulence and luxury ever since the young jeweler was commissioned in 1885 by Tsar Alexander III of Russia to make one as a gift for his wife Maria. Link