Stamp issue information
Decorative eggs from the realm of the tsars (1890-1917)

Face value | CHF 1.00 |
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Motif | Moscow workshop |

Face value | CHF 1.40 |
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Motif | Karl Fabergé |

Face value | CHF 2.60 |
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Motif | Pavel Akimovich Ovchinnikov |
For the second time since 2001 a stamp series is dedicated to the exquisite decorative eggs collected by the Liechtenstein art connoisseur Adulf Peter Goop. Following his donation to the State of Liechtenstein in June 2010 of his wideranging art collection, which includes not just numerous artworks and paintings but also his unique collection of over 2,000 elaborately decorated Easter eggs, once more three superb specimens from this collection are to be featured. The “Moscow workshop” stamp (face value CHF 1.00) shows a two-part Easter egg in cloisonné enamel, supported on a stand with three feet in the shape of a fish. Round the middle of the egg run two banderols made from white points, above which stand the Cyrillic letters “X B” for “Khristos Voskresie” (Christ is risen). The egg is modelled on an etching by Vasily Ivanovich Navozov: “Solemn early mass at Easter in St. Isaac’s Cathedral, St. Petersburg”. The most famous egg in the collection is the so-called “Apple Blossom Egg” by the jeweller “Karl Fabergé”, which bears the maker’s mark of Mikhail Y. Perkhin (face value CHF 1.40). It is made of nephrite (jade), two-colour gold, diamonds and enamel and stands on four red-gold feet in the form of miniature apple trees. The leaves are of green gold, the petals are enamelled in opaque white and their centre and the buds are set with diamonds on pink foil. Fabergé received the commission from the industrial magnate Alexander Ferdinandovich Kelch, who gave the egg to his wife at Easter 1901. In the stamp’s background the Anichkov Palace on Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg can be seen. The third egg was made around 1890 by the tsar’s court jeweller, “Pavel Akimovich Ovchinnikov“ (face value CHF 2.60). It is likewise a twopart Easter egg in cloisonné enamel, chased silver, gilded and set with Russian garnets. The background shows Red Square with St. Basil’s Cathedral. The printing process used is combined offset and steel engraving; the background is gold.
Inge R. Madlé
49,58 x 35 mm
Druckanstalt: Royal Joh. Enschedé,
Haarlem
110 grms