The Hen with Sapphire Pendant Egg or Egg with Hen in Basket is a Tsar Imperial Fabergé egg, one in a series of fifty-two jewelled eggs made under the supervision of Peter Carl Fabergé for the Russian Imperial family.

It was created in 1886 for Alexander III of Russia, who presented it to his wife, the Empress Maria Feodorovna. It is one of seven Fabergé eggs that are currently lost.

This egg is one of the 50 “Imperial” eggs, 43 of which survive, made for the Russian Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II as Easter gifts for their wives and mothers.

The celebrated series of 50 Imperial Easter eggs was created for the Russian Imperial family from 1885 to 1916 when the company was run by Peter Carl Fabergé. These creations are inextricably linked to the glory and tragic fate of the last Romanov family. They were the ultimate achievement of the renowned Russian jewellery house and must also be considered the last great commissions of objets d’art .

Ten eggs were produced from 1885 to 1893, during the reign of Emperor Alexander III; 40 more were created during the rule of his dutiful son, Nicholas II, two each year, one for his mother, the dowager, the second for his wife.

The series began in 1885 when Emperor Alexander III, through the intermediary of his uncle, Grand Duke Vladimir, commissioned an Easter egg from Fabergé as an Easter present for his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna. Initially planned by Fabergé to contain a diamond ring, the actual finished version, following specific instructions of the Emperor, included a ruby pendant of great value.

Inspired by an 18th century original, the Hen Egg has an opaque white enamelled outer ‘shell’, opening with a twist to reveal a first surprise – a matt yellow gold yolk. This in turn contains an enamelled chased gold hen that once held a replica of the Imperial Crown with a precious ruby pendant egg within. The drop by itself cost more than half of the egg’s total price (both lost, being only known from an old photograph).

The exact design of the Hen with Sapphire Pendant egg is not known as there are no known photographs or illustrations of the egg and written descriptions of the egg sometimes conflict with one another. The present is described as “a hen of gold and rose diamonds taking a sapphire egg out of a nest” in the imperial archive dated February 15, 1886 through April 24, 1886.

The sapphire egg was loosely held in the hen’s beak. The hen and the basket were both made of gold studded with hundreds of rose-cut diamonds. The archive of the Russian Provisional Government describes the hen as being silver on a stand of gold, though this description is probably in error since the orders for the 1886 Tsar egg specifically stated the present was to be made of gold.

The Sapphire Pendant Egg was sent to Tsar Alexander III on April 5, 1886 from Fabergé’s workshop. The egg was presented by the Tsar to Tsarina Marie Fedorovna on April 13 of the same year. The egg was housed in the Anichkov Palace until the Revolution. The last documented location of the egg is from the archive of the provisional government’s inventory in 1922 when the egg was held in the Armory Palace of the Kremlin. It is not known whether the egg was lost or is currently in private hands.