The new owner of an $US 18.5 million Faberge Egg says ordinary Russians may have a chance to see it as soon as January. The Director of the Russian National Museum, Alexander Ivanov, set a world record when he bought the egg at Christie’s on Wednesday.

ntil then there are certain expert documents from the UK side that need to be drawn up and the process could take about a month.

The egg's sale took just ten minutes and Alexander Ivanov consider the price to be quite reasonable.

“We initially thought the price would be higher since the market prices were established a long time ago,” he said. 

The egg is going to be placed in a Russian museums, although it’s not decided if it will be the Historical Museum or another one.
The jeweled egg was made in 1902 for the Rothschild banking family was given as an engagement present to a lady called Germaine Halphen before her marriage to Baron Edouard de Rothschild in 1905.

Alexis de Tiesenhausen, International Head of Russian art at Christie’s stressed that “the last price, world record price for Faberge egg was achieved at Christies in 2004 for around $US10 million. We are happy and we are very excited to have this one here in London.”

It is one of the most unique Karl Faberge’s eggs: it is also just one of the 12 known to have been made to imperial standards for anyone other than the former Russian Tsars.

The egg’s existence was previously unknown because the owners kept the record in their family

Russian works of art are breaking records in London’s auction houses.

The Faberge workshops in St. Petersburg produced very few eggs, most of them for the Russian Royal family.

But some were commissioned by exceptionally wealthy clients like the Rothschilds.

Sales of Russian art at Sotheby’s earlier this week totaled more than $US 50 million.