€13m egg breaks three world records

THREE world records were set yesterday when a Faberge egg sold at auction for almost £9 million (€12.5m).

The egg, made for the Rothschild banking family and with a clock on its face, became the most expensive timepiece ever sold.

It also set a record for the most expensive Russian object of all time when it sold for £8.98m at Christie’s in London, breaking the previous record of £6.6m set in April 2002.

Thirdly, it set a world record for a Faberge work of art.

The large gold and pink-coloured egg was bought by a private Russian buyer following an intense 10-minute bidding battle in the auction room. His identity has not been revealed.

The Rothschild Faberge egg is just one of 12 known to have been made to Imperial standards for anybody other than the Russian royal family.

On the egg’s face is a clock containing an automaton cockerel. Every hour the diamond cockerel pops up from inside the egg, flaps its wings four times then nods its head three times in a 15-second performance.

It was a gift from Beatrice Ephrussi to Germaine Halphen for the latter’s engagement to Beatrice’s younger brother, Baron de Rothschild, in 1905.

The egg had been in the family since then.