Frame with a portrait miniature of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna

This Fabergé frame contains a portrait miniature of the Dowager Tsarina Marie Feodorovna, one of the firm's most enthusiastic patrons.  It was given as a gift to her sister and brother-in-law, the future Queen Alexandra and King Edward VII, in about 1895. Twenty years later, the Revolution of 1917 forced the Dowager to flee from Russia to the Crimea, and from there she was rescued by a British cruiser sent by the Prince of Wales.  After a brief stay with her sister at Sandringham, she returned to Denmark, to the villa near Copenhagen she and Queen Alexandra had shared as children.