This egg was created by the Fabergé firm of gold, diamonds, enamel, pearls, glass and watercolor on ivory. Tsar Nicholas II presented it to his mother, the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, on Easter of 1898.

The surprise inside the egg is a folding panel of eight oval miniature paintings of charitable institutions patronized by the dowager empress.

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The other thing we did in Richmond was visit the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, not something I’d normally do on a first visit to a place, but I have long wanted to see their collection of five Fabergé eggs, and this was my chance to do it.

Me and my friend the great blue heron, posted earlier: