Fabergé Sausage

Coming up for auction this month is what is believed to be the only known example of a Fabergé Sausage. Created for Nicholas II in 1906 by Peter Carl Fabergé, the Fabergé Sausage was believed lost for many years, until 1998 when it was rediscovered hidden under the floorboards of a former Austrian gravy factory. Modelled on a traditional peasant pork sausage, as eaten in the Urals and parts of Siberia, the Fabergé sausage is an enamelled tube, approximately four inches in length, encrusted with jewels and delicately inlaid with silver.

Fabergé, of course, is better known for creating a series of fabulously jewelled eggs for the Russian royal family, but he did branch out into other foodstuffs. Currently on display at the Kremlin Armoury Museum is a rasher of bacon, delicately streaked with filigree strands of gold and studded with rubies, which Fabergé created in 1899. There is also documentation supporting the creation of a Fabergé tomato and a Fabergé slice of fried bread. These pieces have yet to surface, but many researchers believe that there is a whole fried breakfast out there, just waiting to be unearthed.