Faberge's Eggs (Faber Toby); Pan Books, 2009

Between 1885 and 1916, Carl Faberge made fifty fabulous jewelled eggs - Easter presents from Russia's last two emperors to their wives. Since the brutal murder of the last tsar and his family in a Siberian basement, these eggs have become the most famous surviving symbols of the Romanov Empire: both supreme examples of the jeweller's art and the vulgar playthings of a decadent court on the brink of revolution. Their history encompasses Bolsheviks and entrepreneurs, tycoons and heiresses, con-men and queens. Eggs have been sold and smuggled, stolen and forged. Now, as they return to Russia, their history - like that of Russia itself - seems to have come full circle.

Faberge's Eggs provides an engrossing and compelling window onto the empire these masterpieces outlived.

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