The original commission for most of the animals, placed by King Edward VII of England in 1907, was for a large assortment of animals. Many of these were sculpted from life at Sandringham, the country estate of King Edward and his Queen, Alexandra (Alexandra, you may recall, was the sister to Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna, mother of Tsar Nicholas II). Queen Alexandra was inordinately fond of animals and actually kept a zoo at Sandringham in addition to her beloved dogs, horses and farm animals of the estate.

In the Queen's Collection there are three bulls, and the bull shown above was almost certainly based on one of the wax models that were made at Sandringham by sculptors sent there by Fabergé. After completing the models, the models were returned to Russia and the workshops of Fabergé permitted the stone carvers to work directly from these lifelike figures.

When the carvings were completed, they were returned to the London branch of Fabergé and there the sale was finalized.

The materials used for the carvings were chosen by the sculptors generally based on the color of the stone being as close to lifelike as possible. Russia had enormous deposits of these stones in the Ural Mountains and Fabergé used them to great advantage.

Handling the animal above, one can feel the hipbone protrusions along with various other body details including the loosely hung neck skin. The eyes are diamonds set in gold bezels. The Bull is 8 inches from horn tip to tail tip and stands 4 inches tall at the shoulder.

Retail: $1200.00. Our price: $1079.90.