Alexander Palace, Imperial Easter egg at Kremlin Armoury, Russia.

The Alexander Palace egg is made of Siberian nephrite, diamonds, gold, rubies and miniature watercolor paintings on ivory. Five portraits of Nicholas II's children appear on its surface, each topped by a diamond monogram; birth dates are inscribed on their reverse, visible only from inside. The surprise is a tinted gold and enamel replica of the Alexander Palace, with rock crystal windows and a light green enameled roof, set on a five-legged gold table.

Nicholas II commissioned the egg in 1908 and gave it to Alexandra; it cost 12,300 rubles. From 1913 to 1916 it stood in her Mauve Sitting Room at the Alexander Palace. In 1917 Kerensky's army confiscated it and moved it from the Anichkov Palace to the Kremlin Armoury, where it remains.

The egg displays the names and birth dates of the five imperial children in an intimate way across its surface. This personal approach shows how the gift expressed the close family bonds of the royal couple.

The egg is displayed in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow, one of ten Fabergé eggs in that collection. The miniature palace can be lifted from the egg, but the original stand is lost; the present stand was made in 1989 by the Moscow Experimental Jewellery Factory from a sketch by T. D. Zharkova.

This work remained in Alexandra Fedorovna's private dressing room, the Mauve Sitting Room, until 1916 where it could be seen daily. Its story of surviving through the revolutionary upheaval sets it apart from most other imperial eggs that were scattered away.