V&A's Fabergé exhibition reveals imperial opulence and tragic foreshadowing

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London hosts 'Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution,' the largest Fabergé collection assembled in decades. It showcases over 50 intricate eggs and objects crafted by goldsmith Carl Fabergé for Russian Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II between 1885 and 1917. These lavish gifts, containing surprises like gold hens and miniature portraits, were commissioned annually for the tsarinas, celebrating births and easing homesickness. The exhibition highlights Fabergé's London branch, operational from 1903, and details such as designer Alma Pihl's ice shard pendant inspired by frost. Objects like the Trans-Siberian Railway egg (1900) and Memory of Azov egg (1891) reveal imperial callousness and prescient warnings, while later eggs like the Steel Military (1916) and unfinished Karelian Birch (1917) reflect the dynasty's collapse. The Romanovs continued ordering eggs through crises like the 1891 famine, with the Bolsheviks later selling many under the 'Treasures for Tractors' policy. Carl Fabergé died in Swiss exile, and the eggs now symbolize both opulence and the doomed fate of the family.