BEIJING, Dec. 3 ,2007 -- A rare translucent pink Faberge egg made from enamel and gold that had been in the Rothschild banking family for more than 100 years was sold at auction Wednesday for a record 18.5 million U.S. dollars.

    The sale of the egg, topped with a diamond-studded cockerel, was the highest for a Faberge work of art, Christie's auction house said. The price also broke the record for Russian artwork, except paintings, easily beating the 9.6 million dollars paid for a Faberge egg in New York in 2002, Christie's said.

The Rothschild Faberge egg on displayed at Christie's auction house in London, Oct. 4, 2007. The previously unrecorded Faberge egg fetched $18.5 million on Wednesday, setting an auction record for the jeweller, any Russian art object and any timepiece. The translucent pink egg contains a clock and animated cockerel and had never been seen in public before the sale was announced.(Reuters File Photo)

    "It holds an amazing fascination for just about everybody, from James Bond onwards as far as I remember," said Anthony Philips, Christie's Russian art specialist. "It's just a magic name. The quality is fantastic. There's a romantic association with the Russian Revolution. They're of stunning workmanship."

    Prices for Russian art have escalated as the country's increased wealth makes its way on to the international art market. Sales of Russian art at Christie's rose from 27 million dollars in 2004 to 79 million dollars in 2006, spokesman Matthew Patton said.

    Russian Czar Alexander III commissioned the first of the elaborate eggs from craftsman Peter Carl Faberge as an Easter gift for his wife, Empress Maria Fedorovna.

    The empress was so enamored of that 1885 piece — an enameled egg with a gold yolk, gold hen, miniature diamond crown and ruby egg inside — that the czar commissioned a new egg every Easter.

    After the czar died in 1894, his son Nicholas continued the tradition until the Russian Revolution in 1917. Nicholas and his family were executed in 1918. Faberge created more than 50 eggs for Russia's imperial family, though not all survive.

    The Rothschild Faberge Egg is one of no more than 12 such pieces known to have been made to imperial standards for private clients, Christie's said.

    (Agencies)