Czarist-era Faberge eggs bought by Russian billionaire

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Natasha
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Czarist-era Faberge eggs bought by Russian billionaire

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Czarist-era Faberge eggs bought by Russian billionaire go on display in Moscow

By ANNELI NERMAN


MOSCOW (AP) - Fifteen Czarist-era Faberge eggs were triumphantly unveiled in a Kremlin museum Tuesday, three months after a Russian billionaire purchased the collection as part of a campaign to bring home Russia's cultural heritage.

The Easter eggs, treasures of intricately worked jewels and precious metals by jeweller Carl Faberge, are the highlight of the Faberge: Lost and Recovered exhibit in the Patriarch's Palace Museum in Moscow's historic Kremlin.

The collection includes nine eggs created for Czars Alexander III and Nicholas II as gifts for the Czarinas Maria and Alexandra. Only the Kremlin Armoury has more, with 10 of the 50 existing eggs. The most valuable item - the Coronation Egg - is estimated by Sotheby's to be worth $24 million US. Six eggs were made for others, including the British Duke of Marlborough.

The items exhibited are part of the 180-piece collection that Viktor Vekselberg, vice-president of the oil company TNK-BP, bought from the estate of U.S. publisher Malcolm S. Forbes earlier this year for his Bond of Times cultural foundation.

Bond of Times is tasked with purchasing and bringing home objects of art and culture. Vekselberg is Russia's third richest man with an estimated $5.9 billion fortune.

Substantial amounts of art were taken abroad by aristocrats and wealthy merchants fleeing the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Much of what was left was sold off by Soviet authorities, who were both strapped for cash and ideologically opposed to aristocratic excess.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians have become increasingly interested in regaining their departed treasures. Wealthy Russians have gone on art buying sprees in the West, but few of the pieces have been brought home.

The return of the Faberge collection was praised by the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography head Mikhail Shvydkoi as proof that the recent scrapping of a 30 per cent import duty on objects of significant cultural value was encouraging their repatriation.

It was, he said, also testimony to a psychological change among collectors who no longer fear making their acquisitions known.

Bond of Times representative Andrei Shtorkh declined to give the exact purchase price for the collection but said it was over $100 million.

Countering speculation that Vekselberg would donate the collection to the state, Bond of Times board chairman Vladimir Voronchenko said the Faberge collection would remain private.

"We don't see anything shameful in the revival of the tradition of enlightened collecting," he said.

Only about 100 serious private and corporate collections exist in Russia, according to Shvydkoi, who said this sector must grow if a normal cultural environment is to develop in Russia.

Voronchenko said Tuesday that Vekselberg's foundation was planning two more acquisitions that are of even greater significance than the Faberge collection.

The Faberge exhibit which opens to the public on Saturday will also be shown in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and in Yekaterinburg, where the Russian imperial family was executed in 1918. It then travels to the Siberian cities of Irkutsk and Tyumen.

:) Now if only more icons could find their way home as well....

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