mounted in platinum and mounted with rose cut diamonds with a millegrain setting edge, centred with an old brilliant cut diamonds, the clasp fittings in yellow gold.
Workmaster: Albert Holmström
Length: 2.6cm
The design for this jewel, drawn to scale, survives in the Holmström workshop’s jewellery design ledgers.
Fabergé’s winter jewels are sublime creations which perfectly evoke the beauty of Russia’s harsh winters. They were envisioned by the gifted and young female designer Alma Pihl, after she looked up at the north-light of her studio and saw winter through the windowpane. Her uncle, Fabergé’s chief jeweller Albert Holmström brought her ideas to life by producing the intricate jewels in his workshop behind Fabergé’s premises in St. Petersburg. Most were bought by Emmanuel Nobel the Swedish industrialist and cherished patron of Fabergé. The climax of the winter jewels is the Imperial Winter Easter Egg given by Emperor Nicholas II to his mother Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, for Easter 1913.