It was from Alexander Palace that Tsar Nicholas II and his family departed on their final tragic journey to Yekaterinburg.
The Palace rises from the mist, hand-painted on fine lead crystal. The Imperial crown surmounts the creation, set with a cabochon ruby; the base is ornamentally turned on Theo Fabergé's 1861 Holtzapffel lathe. On the reverse of the Egg, looking beyond the lake, the surprise is the cipher of Alexander I fluttering in the breeze, above the palace mirrored in the water.