Both sublime and ridiculous

Sam Leith reviews Toby Faber’s history of Fabergé eggs

What a great idea for a book, this is — and how well-executed. Toby Faber has produced, at just the length to suit it, a hugely enjoyable and informative account of the making and afterlife of the best-known examples of the jeweller’s art. Here is a series of love stories; a historical panorama; a tale of grotesque imperial frivolity, of barbarous totalitarian wrecking and of all-American hucksterism; a parable about the nature of value; and, above all, a portrait of the endless and winning absurdity of economic man in pursuit of shiny gewgaws.

The first Fabergé egg was given as an Easter present in 1885 by Tsar Alexander III to his wife Marie Federovna. It was a white egg, that opened to reveal a golden yolk, within which was a tiny golden hen sitting on a nest of golden straw, an imperial crown and a ruby pendant.