When Fabergé’s work was first exhibited outside Russia, at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, the jury commented in their official report that his jewels ‘pushed at the extreme limits of perfection’. They praised particularly of the technical virtuosity of the gem-set work, writing that ‘perfect execution as well as irreproachable setting distinguish all objects exhibited by the House of Fabergé’. This brooch, made approximately a decade later, exemplifies the delicacy and variety of Fabergé settings - with its combination of mille-grain around the outer edges and the larger stones, and the innovatory platinum mesh into which tiny diamonds are slotted. This latter technique also featured in Fabergé’s Mosaic Egg of 1914, designed by Alma Pihl and made in the workshop of Albert Holmström, which was given by Tsar Nicholas II to his wife Alexandra at Easter 1914.