The Winter Egg (1913)

Carved from rock crystal to mimic ice, the Winter Egg trades Faberge's usual jewel-box density for something closer to a frozen still life -- a basket of spring flowers rendered in white quartz, gold, and garnet, set inside what looks like solid ice. That restraint is exactly why collectors rate it so highly: it's a showcase of the workshop's technical range as much as its taste for excess. When it came up at Christie's in 2002, it sold for $9.6 million, a record for any Faberge egg at auction at the time.