Russian
Pair of Easter Egg Pendants, late 19th century
Gold; sapphire and garnet
Pair of Russian Easter egg pendants, one sapphire and one garnet, both with gold bails. Each stone is shaped like an egg and pockmarked. The sapphire pendant is attached to a thick taupe-colored textured ribbon that is tied at the center and shredded throughout. There is a separate faded handwritten note on rectangular paper that is punched and threaded through at the left side with dark string. In a light brown script it reads: “Russian Easter eggs. Gift of Baron and Baroness Rosen.”
Macknight Room
Commentary
Starting around the 1890s, a tradition arose among affluent Russian families to give a girl an egg pendant every year just before Easter, which she would place on a chain and wear as a necklace from Easter Sunday to Ascension Day, roughly forty days after Easter. The ever-growing string of eggs was meant to chronicle her life until marriage.
In Russian culture, the blue color of the sapphire was traditionally used as a symbol of noble birth—a nod to the term "blue-blooded"— and the red of the garnet was often used to describe something beautiful, good, or honorable.
These pendants were given to Isabella by Baron Roman Romanovich Rosen, a diplomat for the Russian Empire, and his wife Elizabeth. The Bolshevik Revolution forced the Rosens to flee Russia in 1917. The pendants were most likely an Easter gift— perhaps as a celebration of the Rosens’ own “rebirth” after settling in America and starting a new chapter in their lives.