A Fabergé egg, once belonging to Alexander III, is on show for the first time in London after disappearing from public view over a hundred years ago. Jeanne Yurman reports.
TRANSCRIPT
REPORTER: It's the furthest thing from a chocolate bunny or a marshmallow chick. This 20-million-U.S.- dollar Fabergé egg is from the Third Imperial Easter Egg collection, which was thought to be lost for over 100 years. Kieran McCarthy, Director of the London-based antiques dealer Wartski, says it resurfaced in the strangest way.
KIERAN MCCARTHY, DIRECTOR (FABERGE SPECIALIST), WARTSKI: "Well it literally walked in thorough our front door. This is Wartski, and I was sat at my desk here and in walked a gentleman very very modestly attired, and incredibly nervous also, and he walked up to the desk, never said why he was here but he handed me a sheath of photographs. And in these photographs were pictures of the Third Imperial Easter Egg - the missing Fabergé treasure."
REPORTER: The man had purchased the egg in the U.S. for $14,000 at a bric-a-brac market. Now owned by a private collector, it was first commissioned by Russian Emperor Alexander III as a gift in 1887 for his wife for Easter. The egg was last seen at a 1902 exhibition in St. Petersburg - one of 50 made by Fabergé for Russian royalty between the late 19th to early 20th centuries. People around the globe have called McCarthy wishing to fly in and see the oval gem in person. Better hurry up, he says. After its four-day showing this month, it may disappear for another hundred plus years.
