Carnet of green leather, set with watercolour miniature of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna and cipher on reverse; both bezels gold mounted, inscriptions 'D'AMOUR' and 'SOUVENIR'. Gold hinge and rose diamond thumbpiece. It is extremely rare to find objects by Fabergé which are made in leather; only a handful of such pieces are known. This case, inspired by eighteenth-century French design, bears a miniature of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna (1872-1918) by Zehngraf. It formed part of Queen Mary’s collection and contains a note written by Agathon Fabergé (1898-1966), Carl’s eldest son. It explains that the case was made in 1894 or 1895 for the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna and given by her to the Tsar Nicholas II, at the time when Agathon joined his father’s business in St Petersburg. Agathon considers the case to be one of his father’s finest pieces largely because the chiselling of the gold is so fine and such a good re-creation of the French eighteenth-century pieces that inspired it. The note is dated 12 September 1937. The case was previously in the possession of Dr James Hasson. An almost identical French eighteenth-century case was acquired by Queen Mary in 1928. Mark of Michael Perchin; gold mark of 56 zolotniks (before 1896); Fabergé in Cyrillic characters; miniature signed Zehngraf; the case marked SOUVENIR D'AMOUR and ALIX in gold Text adapted from Fabergé in the Royal Collection The miniature of the Tsarina is after a photograph taken around the time of the betrothal of Princess Alexandra of Hesse-Darmstadt to Nicholas, Tsarevitch of Russia.