They might pay as much as $90-million to nab the Forbes family's 200 pieces at a Sotheby's auction in the spring.
By Associated Press
Published January 10, 2004
NEW YORK - The Forbes family's Faberge collection - 12 eggs and an assortment of other gems - could fetch up to $90-million when auctioned April 20-21, Sotheby's said.
The most valued item, the Coronation Egg, could go for as much as $24-million, the auction house said Thursday.
Malcolm S. Forbes, former publisher and editor of Forbes magazine, collected the items from 1960 until his death in 1990. The collection continued to be displayed in the Forbes Galleries and in shows worldwide.
The Forbes family said the sale would free them from the upkeep of the collection. "The family has now decided it is time for us to make this unique treasure trove available to other collectors, so they may have the thrill of owning a rare and exquisite work of Faberge," the Forbes family said in a statement.
The collection includes nine Imperial eggs, three Kelch eggs and more than 180 other Faberge pieces.
The eggs, about 5 inches tall, are intricately designed and individually crafted. The Coronation Egg, for example, is created from gold-colored guilloche enamel and contains a replica of the coach Czar Nicholas II's wife rode into Moscow.
Carl Faberge, who created jewelry for European royalty in the 19th century, was commissioned by Czar Alexander III of Russia to create an Easter gift for his wife, Czarina Marina Feodorovna, in 1885. Nicholas II continued the tradition, and the collection grew.
Forbes began his Faberge collection with the purchase of a gold cigarette case. He later acquired the Duchess of Marlborough Egg and the Imperial Cuckoo Egg.
The Forbes collection of Imperial eggs is the second largest in the world, after that of the Armory Museum in the Kremlin, which has 10. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has five, other private collectors have four, and Queen Elizabeth II has three.
Forbes spoke of auctioning the collection in his 1989 book, More Than I Dreamed: A Lifetime of Collecting. "I've often told my children I hope that, if they decide to be done with one of the collections, they will put it back on the auction block so that other people can have the same vast fun and excitement that we did in amassing it," he wrote.
The Forbes family has had a relationship with Sotheby's for decades, auction house spokeswoman Patty Fox said.
"It's only recently they approached us about auctioning this collection," she said.
