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How 'Bout Eggs?
175 Plays2 years ago
This week's episode is all about eggs! That’s right.. eggs! From Fabergé and pysanky to folklore, children’s books, and memes!
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Transcript
Easter Traditions and Symbolism
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, hello, and welcome to our Pop Talk. I'm Gianna. And I'm Bianca. Easter, the day Jesus rose from the dead. Gianna, what should we do to celebrate?
00:00:14
Speaker
Um, how about eggs? Well, what does that have to do with Jesus? All right, we'll hide them. Gianna, I'm not following. Allow me to explain my logic with the humorous help from Jim Gaffigan to illuminate you with today's Art Pop Talk on eggs, from memes to Faberge to painting them on Easter. All right, everyone, let's Art Pop Talk.
00:00:42
Speaker
Hello, hello, how you doing? Doing pretty good.
Bridgerton's Musical Magic
00:00:47
Speaker
It's a very nice day outside. And I am finally catching up on Bridgerton season two. Oh, Gianna, I thought of you. Because we know how you love the Bridgerton soundtrack. Oh, yeah.
00:01:04
Speaker
and i was wondering so i'm only on episode four but my favorite song thus far has been dancing on my own and i was wondering what you thought about the soundtrack for season two yeah i feel like it's it's like a little it's not hitting as well for me as season one but dancing on my own i thought was the
00:01:26
Speaker
perfect edition. I think so because I don't do anything with my life that I've already finished season two of Richardson and I re-watched season one to just kind of get a little bit of like a comparison and I like forgot.
00:01:42
Speaker
basically everything that happened in season one, so. I just went back and watched it, and I was thinking about that, how the music seemed a little bit more subtle in season two. One of the last episodes, they do have a rendition of Wrecking Ball that kind of hits good, which I like that. I think Material Girl, or Material World, whatever that Madonna song. Material Girl, yeah. I did like that.
00:02:11
Speaker
Someone brought to my attention on TikTok, I believe that because a lot of the Hindu wedding culture, I think there is a rendition of an Indian or a Hindu wedding song in Bridgerton that may not
00:02:30
Speaker
be, of course, familiar to us. So that's really cool. But I need to dive into that a little bit further to see, one, if that's accurate, and two, what that song is. But it also made me really happy because I'm like- Should you play it at your wedding? Well, because I'm like, fuck, I'm such a basic bitch.
00:02:46
Speaker
All of the music that I have on my wedding playlist, I think is impeccable and exquisite. It's just like Gianna's wedding playlist is fucking fire. So if you go on Spotify, there's a playlist called Coastal Grandmother, which is essentially like there are some bops on that. It's so good from like Brown Eyed Girl, like that kind of vibe. And so all of my music is Coastal Grandma.
00:03:14
Speaker
and early 2000s and like Earth, Wind, and Fire. I think it's incredible. But I'm like, damn, like Bridgerton's got some bops. Like, how do I throw that in there? And Phoebe still hasn't given me his playlist of like good Collywood or Malaysian pop music. But I'm like, maybe I should find like what exactly this one song was and see if it's accurate and maybe throw that into the mix so I can have one Bridgerton song, but no one will hate me at my wedding.
00:03:44
Speaker
to think that I'm so basic. I really think that you should walk down the aisle to girls like you from British and that that rendition just oh my god it's so good and I would absolutely die to see you walk down the aisle. I just hate myself way too much for that to take place.
00:04:09
Speaker
Oh my gosh. I thought dancing on my own was good, but that's the only one thus far in season two where I've been like, ooh, yeah, like, I like that. I was expecting it to be like a little bit more hyped up this season as well, because last season it was so good. We got so many songs from it.
00:04:25
Speaker
And that was a staple of season one. And I'm kind of disappointed in the music of season two. Well, it's just like I love Celeste so much. And like the rendition of strangers. I mean, that song is like is that in season two? No, that's in season one. It's like when they're like
00:04:49
Speaker
the ultimate like smut moment like wedding night moment oh my gosh really that's on season one yeah that's oh i don't remember that are you kidding no i need to look it's beautiful i mean like strangers is just like such a beautiful song because i listen to girls like you probably i mean it's already very like you know
00:05:11
Speaker
What's the word I'm looking for? Stringy, violin-y, like, you know, the original version is very acoustic sounding. My musical terms, Josh Turner is rolling in his Discordia coffin as I use the word stringy. But the vitamin string quartet version in Bridgerton fucking slaps.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah,
Ted Lasso's Emotional Soundtrack
00:05:43
Speaker
okay, well I'll have to so maybe I would dance that's the thing is that that song is kind of like sad it's like The opposite of kind of romantic, but if I was gonna walk down to a song maybe it would be that one cuz it's just so Beautiful, but it's like yeah kind of like sad when you listen to the words I so see that song with Ted lasso. Oh, oh
00:06:06
Speaker
because it plays on the episode where they're in Liverpool for a game. And that's when Ted has his first kind of panic attack that we see. And then, I hope I'm not like spoiling Ted Lasso for anyone, but. If you haven't watched Ted Lasso yet, I don't know what you're doing. Well, it's hard to get Apple TV, I think. It's hard to justify getting Apple TV. I mean, I did it just for
00:06:35
Speaker
Ted Lasso. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, I associate that song Strangers with Ted Lasso and it just like
00:06:42
Speaker
Oh my god, that like she rips me in half every time I watch it. That's interesting. I remember the scene. I don't remember that song playing because that's such a deep song for the show. Because there's a lot of relationships forming too. Like Roy and Keely and Ben. Gianna's Roy Kent is...
00:07:10
Speaker
absolutely not. I just love the way he says Keely because his voice is so deep. Keely. And they're like their relationship is like being eluded that it's that it's coming to an end and he's like Keely and I'm like right no Keely no. I can't. Oh my god.
Pixel Art and Cultural Collaboration
00:07:35
Speaker
All right I think that's enough of that.
00:07:38
Speaker
Great chitty chatty. Bianca, you do have some great art news today, kind of following a story that we have already talked about on the podcast. What updates do we have? I was actually talking to a new work colleague about the story who informed me that another pixel war
00:08:04
Speaker
had taken place on Reddit. So like Jenna said, we have talked about this before. The social experience on the Reddit page are place, which originally took place back in 2017. So if you'll remember, this was founded by Josh Wardle from Wordle, meant to act as quote, a screenshot of the internet at this moment in time.
00:08:30
Speaker
Cameron Sherrill writes for Esquire, quote, five years later on April 1st, 2022, the subreddit made its massive and triumphant return. Our place offers a giant open canvas that allows anyone and everyone to place one colored pixel. Each pixel has its own timer, meaning an individual or group can endlessly spam these shapes.
00:08:58
Speaker
which forces either coordination between users, if you want kind of a cohesive piece, or absolute chaos, if that is what you're into.
00:09:09
Speaker
Our place mixes art, teamwork, and sheer randomness into the awe-inspiring tapestry that the designer in me finds truly beautiful. So this writer for Esquire also had the funniest line in this article about comparing tech people or quote-unquote kind of like online artists
00:09:38
Speaker
to the stylings of Van Gogh and Picasso and I was like oh my god like this is such an Esquire article right now. I'm sure that Cameron is a perfectly lovely person and writer but I was like
00:09:56
Speaker
What is this comparison in this article? The stylings are so different between those who are producing these pixel artworks, much like the different stylings of artists like Van Gogh and Picasso. I was like, what is this comparison? Anyway, I thought that was funny. So during the pixel painting process, there were these kind of territory wars that took place, i.e. that's where
00:10:26
Speaker
The idea of the pixel war comes in where people essentially had to work together or communicate with others that they were building in certain places. So if people decided to invade those spaces, others would kind of fight back or eventually negotiate their terms so that their work in the pixels could be completed.
00:10:48
Speaker
And Gianna, I know that you love a good Easter egg. And since we were talking about eggs in this episode, there are some fabulous art historical Easter eggs hidden in this completed work that we now see.
00:11:03
Speaker
So we do have Munch's The Scream, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. We had a Starry Night make a comeback, which I think was in the original piece from 2017. But this one features a teeny tiny Vincent Mango besides Starry Night with a little pipe, and it's pretty cute. Next to that is a Mondrian. We also have a painting, The Tortoise Trainer by Osman Hamdi Bey.
00:11:33
Speaker
The Last Supper made a little appearance, the Mona Lisa which actually looks quite amazing and gave me kind of like ever after vibes. Rembrandt's The Night Watch also is kind of a big one that people are talking about and that one seems like kind of a big surprise I guess. The Night Watch is just like randomly making an appearance here and there's also above the Night Watch there's a very beautiful ship at sea but I cannot figure out what
00:12:01
Speaker
piece of art that is or if it is one at all and people just made it on their own. We also see architectural forms like the Louvre and Arc de Triomphe. Apparently there was quite the pixel war taking place in French territory which we see in the lower left corner so I enjoyed
00:12:22
Speaker
Which is so funny because there's like a guy holding a baguette. There's also like a little latte in the French quarters. It's pretty cute. So there were some moderators looking over this to stop hate speech. Apparently there was like a little bit of some obscenity in terms of graphics happening.
00:12:45
Speaker
Like there was like a big butt, I guess, and they had to get rid of it. Four days after this thread opened, the only color that was available actually became white. So four days after people made this work,
00:13:01
Speaker
users started to essentially erase the image pixel by pixel because the only thing left or available made available to them was the color white. So it's interesting that we do have this record of it.
The Art and Culture of Eggs
00:13:14
Speaker
We have this time capsule of it kind of being made just like the version from 2017. But of course, we have that ephemeral quality.
00:13:23
Speaker
where everyone who made it took place and actually erasing it as well. So we don't have the original piece, but we have these kind of screenshots of it. So Gianna, what do you think of this rendition?
00:13:35
Speaker
That's wild to think about that a digital work of art, we don't have the original piece because everybody collectively erased it. That's fascinating. I mean, I was kind of getting a little distracted when you were talking because I was looking for some of the pop culture references. We do have like quite a bit of Star Wars on here. A lot of Star Wars on here. There's also like a sticker that says OSU, explanation point. And I'm trying to figure out what OSU that is.
00:14:04
Speaker
I saw that too, Gianna. And I was like, is this could be Ohio State? I don't know what it is. I don't know. But interesting, right? I do think that it is interesting that essentially the composition looks the same as the first pixel wars. And I'm curious about
00:14:25
Speaker
one, will this continue again? And will it kind of take shape in this format? Because it looks very much like a grid. And we do have some... I think what's interesting about this one is that those places, besides the country, as you call it, the French Quarter, the grid seems to be on the smaller scale, where I feel as though the first time there were images that were
00:14:53
Speaker
very, very prominent taking up a larger portion. But now, because the Mona Lisa, the starry night, like all of the little, the Last Supper, they're so, so small. Like I didn't, I watched a video about the kind of Easter eggs that were in here to find them. Because the only one that I would see, I could see from its most zoomed out state is the Night Watch, the Arc de Triomphe, the ship,
00:15:23
Speaker
It's hard to tell what else is kind of embedded in here. I think that is also an indication of how many people try to participate in it too. So we also have that record. So yeah, I mean, I'm fascinated by these social experiments.
00:15:42
Speaker
Something about Josh Wardle's work reminds me of Raphael Lozano Hemmer's work, these digital social experiments, this record of what takes place in the digital realm. Also, you think like, is there, are we grasping at straws here? Is there something haunting about the fact that we don't have the original work of this digital piece? We only have the record of it and everybody worked to erase it.
00:16:10
Speaker
Art historical like bullshit hat that I'm capped that you know, I'm putting on but it's fascinating I don't know. I really like these social experiments Well, I think with that everybody we are going to keep this Easter egg train going but we are gonna take a little break and when we come back we are talking all about eggs and
00:17:02
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody. Giana, I have a very serious question for you. How do you like your eggs? I like my eggs in, um...
00:17:16
Speaker
a few different forms. I don't know. I have a weird thing with egg in the morning. I don't know if anyone else feels the same. It's really hard for me to eat eggs first thing in the morning, but I do like a sunny side up. I do like a runny yolk on like some avocado toast. I am into that.
00:17:38
Speaker
but you can't go wrong with a good scrambled egg. Sometimes that just hits different, but I really have to be in the mood for it to be able to eat it. First thing in the morning when I'm like up at seven, it's just kind of hard.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, I like my eggs, you know, jewel encrusted and sparkly and stunning as we'll get into. But if I had to eat an egg, scrambled is usually my go-to. I did have scrambled eggs this morning. I love eggs in the morning. I know that the phenomenon of eggs, as we'll talk about, I feel as though
00:18:24
Speaker
Eggs are something that can make people kind of uncomfortable. Like maybe milk perhaps? Real milk is one of those things where people are like, ew, how can you drink milk? And then people were like, ew, how can you eat eggs? But I love eggs because oftentimes in the morning I feel like I need some protein. Yeah.
00:18:47
Speaker
And I have been making this delicious omelet. And I've been putting broccoli and cheddar cheese and some egg whites. And it is lovely. It is delightful. So I definitely am a person who loves to eat eggs and hard boiled eggs and like ramen or a grain bowl, a salad.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah, I was gonna say actually I have been eating hard-boiled eggs recently and I there's something about a Hard-boiled egg that I feel like I can tolerate in the morning like it doesn't make me sick But yeah ever since I started dating Theban I feel like I eat hard-boiled eggs more because they're just kind of like a staple side and a lot of Asian cuisine, you know, I
00:19:33
Speaker
Yeah, my roommate, Alyssa, Dr. Green always made hard-boiled eggs whenever we were living together. I feel like I would come home and she would just make a bunch of hard-boiled eggs and like take them with her as little snacks, you know? Phoebe made like long tea hard-boiled eggs and it's... Oh. I don't know exactly what they're called, but basically you like boil
00:19:59
Speaker
eggs and then you crack the shell and then you kind of marinate them in like a tea, cinnamon, clove kind of spicy tea mixture and then once you let them sit for a while then you take the shell off in it
00:20:16
Speaker
absorbs all of those spices and but then it leaves this like beautiful marbled like cracked design on it where you can like see the tea like hit the exterior of the egg. We did them with quail eggs not too long ago and they were really pretty and you can just put them in like a little bit of soy sauce and they're really good. Oh my gosh that's so interesting especially with what we're gonna be getting into today in terms of this idea of painting eggs but
00:20:44
Speaker
I think the way you're describing them is also an interesting part of just food presentation, not necessarily the shell exterior being a place for ornamentation, but the egg, what you can do with that and the possibilities to that in terms of food presentation and ornamentation and decoration of food. That's super interesting.
00:21:09
Speaker
Like we said, in honor of this springy feeling that we're in, Gianna and I were kind of toying around with the ideas of rebirth for this episode, but then we were on the phone and we were like, what if we just talk about eggs? There's just something kind of funny and weirdly cultural about the presence of eggs throughout our lives, throughout visual culture, throughout art history.
00:21:38
Speaker
And Gianna, we remember the famous Instagram egg. So if you don't know, the Instagram egg is exactly what it sounds like it is, which is a photo of an egg that was posted on Instagram by the verified account, which is
00:21:58
Speaker
world record egg. It became a global phenomenon and an internet meme within days of its creation as it is the most liked instagram post ever. It's also the most liked
00:22:14
Speaker
online post on any website in history with currently around 55.8 million likes as of this past March. So essentially it made headlines in 2019 when it surpassed the previous record of the most likes a picture
00:22:31
Speaker
has ever had of Ms. Bebe Sturmewebster that was posted by Kylie Jenner. The owner of the account was later revealed to be Chris Godfrey, an advertising creative who later worked with his two friends, Alyssa Khan Whelan and CJ Brown, on a Hulu commercial featuring the egg intended to raise awareness of mental health. And I was reading about this and whenever at first
00:22:58
Speaker
premiered on Instagram as well. I mean obviously became a huge topic of interest and outlets started reaching out to the supposed creator of the world record egg account and at the time who we now know to be Chris Godfrey apparently responded that he was the chicken Henrietta and he was
00:23:24
Speaker
talking with news outlets like BuzzFeed and stuff like that about like through this persona of he was Henrietta the chicken and this was her egg. That's
The Legacy of Fabergé Eggs
00:23:36
Speaker
some commitment.
00:23:39
Speaker
Yeah. There's also something interesting about the nature of eggs from fairy tales and folklore as well. Gianna and I were talking about this book called The Talking Eggs, which we both realized at the same time on the phone yesterday was an integral book to our
00:24:02
Speaker
childhood which also led us to think we should do an episode on children's books as well. But The Talking Eggs is such a beautiful book with amazing illustrations where this young girl essentially gets to collect all of these eggs and she's supposed to collect the plain eggs. There's these plain eggs that she needs to go and get
00:24:24
Speaker
But there are also next to the plain eggs these amazing Fabergé style, jewel encrusted, amazing, gorgeous, very clearly kind of monetarily valuable eggs.
00:24:40
Speaker
But this girl she never goes to take the the pretty ones she always gets the plain eggs so And then they're enticing because the pretty eggs They talk they talk and some of the eggs say take me take me and then the other eggs say don't take me don't take me But the woman told her don't take the pretty eggs
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah. And then when she throws them over her shoulder, she'll throw them over your shoulder and don't look behind you. Oh, and they come, there's like dresses in them and stuff like that. I think a carriage pops out of one.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah, one thing I remember about this book that scared the shit out of me was the old woman who, you know, lives in the forest as all fairy tales go. As he goes. You know, she has other like weird animals, like two headed chickens and that are like, things like that. But she literally takes her head off.
00:25:38
Speaker
to like brush her hair. Do you remember that? I was laying in bed at night thinking about other things about this book and I'm like, doesn't she take her head off? That scared the shit out of me. And mom was very good with like her voices when she would like read us books. Very good voice actress. And so she had this like old lady voice. I'm like, Jesus Christ.
00:26:04
Speaker
That's so funny. Yeah, so it's a beautiful book though. It's so pretty. We'll post some images of the beautiful eggs, but definitely recommend the talking eggs. We'll link it for you guys. But, you know, we also started thinking about
00:26:24
Speaker
the nature of eggs of course and fairy tales and folklore and that leads to Jack and the Beanstalk and I was I've been watching the Suite Life of Zack and Cody and so I um have moved on to Suite Life on deck which I have never watched before but you know it's on Disney Plus and there's an episode where they're going through all of these
00:26:45
Speaker
fairy tales and they do Jack and the Beanstalk and London plays the goose that lays the golden egg. It's so funny, like London just shitting out these golden eggs on camera.
00:27:03
Speaker
It's really funny, so I have a little picture of it here. Cody is holding the golden egg and there's that kind of cultural presence that I think the goose that lays the golden egg, you know, has in popular culture as well.
00:27:20
Speaker
Once upon a time, obviously to Jack and the Beanstalk, we're all very familiar with this idea of value that comes with eggs as well. So I want to get into some egg art history, which Gianna is going to present for us. But I think that a lot of us have a favorite childhood memory of something creative having to do with eggs as well.
00:27:48
Speaker
also thinking about the Easter egg hunts that we used to have. And this idea of a special egg or a golden egg or a jewel egg. They're serving our Easter eggs. Well, there would always be a special egg and mom wouldn't
00:28:05
Speaker
you know, mark it with like a Sharpie. So we would know we found all squirrel and then I think it had our initial on it because like you got one and I got one. So it was so that way we couldn't that yeah, that way it was fair. So but it has like too many swirly special eggs. It gets like a Jewish like a dollar. Yeah, yeah, a golden coin. Can I just say that the hold that like a dollar coin had on us as a kid because Bianca
00:28:35
Speaker
didn't grow up like we didn't have allowances or anything like that. We were just like forced to like do a bunch of shit. And dad also would like totally catfish us with this idea of the golden coin because our two dollar bill and it's like some child labor ship because our dad
00:28:57
Speaker
was a cabinet maker and was in construction and so he had his own like shop on her property and so dad would be like hey like girls like come sweep the shop for me and I'll give you a gold coin and we'd be like hot damn my gold coin and we would clean his entire like dusty shop with like
00:29:18
Speaker
No, like, dust mask or, like, anything protecting us. It's been, like, all day out there.
00:29:29
Speaker
just sweeping a shop for a dollar. So anyways, Bianca and I are very enticed easily. The gold coins. My special eggs. My special eggs. The golden egg, the special egg, gold coins, shiny things, you know. But yeah, I was just thinking about how it's kind of funny how even for Easter egg hunts, there was always that prized egg also that
00:29:53
Speaker
you and I would try to go find with the gold coin in it. And we did dye eggs, not necessarily all the time, but I definitely remember that being a thing we did every now and then kind of freaster. Yeah, I remember doing it every now and then because during Easter, you can buy those little like, kid, you know, DIY kits.
00:30:16
Speaker
And the wax is just like a little crayon that you draw with. So they're, you know, I feel like I still see those out. Yeah. But we'll actually get into painting eggs in a little bit. But do we want to get kind of into the museum, kind of into the history of it all? Oh, please take it away.
00:30:41
Speaker
Well, I feel as though you all would suspect and, you know, make sure that we talk about Fabergé eggs. It's a little too on the nose not to talk about them. So the first imperial Fabergé egg dates back to 1885 when the Russian Tsar, Alexander III, commissioned a gift for his wife, Empress Maria Fedorovna for Easter.
00:31:07
Speaker
So Easter is very important for also the Russian Orthodox calendar and the church. So Alexander recruited the award-winning master goldsmith, Peter Karl Fabergé, who had been running the House of Fabergé since 1882 after inheriting it a decade earlier from his father, who was a jeweler, Gustav Fabergé, who founded the business in St. Petersburg in 1842.
00:31:36
Speaker
So Peter Karl Fabergé was also very well versed in art history and I would say also the happenings and history of the Romanov family. So Fabergé based his first egg, it is so believed so, on the 18th century Saxon royal egg which he had seen in the Green Vault Museum in Dresden.
00:32:00
Speaker
It's a gold egg that holds a gold hen, a gold crown and a ring. Apparently kind of riffing on an earlier egg, Fabergé created his own version that is white. It's also got enameled gold on it. So on the inside, it's like this gold yolk and that conceals a small golden hen. And when you open it, it kind of turns into this pendant.
00:32:26
Speaker
The final surprise, the prize hidden within the Faberge egg, came as a request from the Czar himself. So that's kind of where we get this opening effect, right? It's not just a decorative object, it's functional, it does something, it holds something. This is kind of a little bit off the beaten path, but I don't know if you guys grew up with these little
00:32:51
Speaker
candy dishes that were made out of glass or milk glass and they the top of them were little hens or roosters and then you would like open it up. We grew up with one of those and
00:33:05
Speaker
That kind of decorative object too just kind of hearkens back to this idea of the Fabergé egg. Also these like everyday household objects. We can also think about rushing nesting dolls too. I've just kind of been thinking of some other items that encase things, right? There is also this guy Giza von Habsburg.
00:33:26
Speaker
who is a Fabergé expert, and he's published books and articles on the jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé. He is also a curator and has curated several major exhibitions.
00:33:38
Speaker
about Fabergé eggs specifically. So this dude is obsessed with eggs and going through a lot of different articles he's quoted a lot. So Habsburg explains that going off of this commission work by the Czar that we know that this is one of these very rare cases where the Czar
00:33:58
Speaker
wanted a say in the matter, wanted kind of creative control. But from here on out after this first golden egg with a hen in it, that Fabergé was really given creative control to do whatever he wanted to do after that. But it had to have some kind of element on it that hearkened back to the royal family.
00:34:21
Speaker
So each year thereafter, for three decades, Faberge would imagine his own designs and he would be the leader in the production of these imperial Easter eggs. When Alexander III died in 1894, his son Czar Nicholas II kept the tradition alive and raised the stakes, beginning to commission two eggs per year, one for his mother and one for his wife, Alexandra.
00:34:46
Speaker
So the eggs were very unique and different each year. They always ranged in different materials, getting more inventive as they went. They would have rock crystals, they would have stones, they would have gems, emeralds, pearls, diamonds, you name it. All these heavily, heavily,
00:35:03
Speaker
decorative natural golden materials. The eggs themselves would also range in size from under three inches to over five inches tall and could often but not always be open to again reveal that special surprise. So some were purely decorative and then some were very functional. Going back to our art historian,
00:35:29
Speaker
Von Habsburg believes that the coronation egg from 1897 is kind of the most iconic, and this egg commemorated Alexandra's imperial coronation. It's covered in luminous gold, it's got this yellow-green enamel to it, it's got this sunburst design, and it also has diamonds on the end, and it encloses a toy-size coach.
00:35:53
Speaker
which is a miniature replica of the 18th century vehicle that transported the empress on the day of the imperial ceremony.
00:36:00
Speaker
So crazy. And I love a good little toy car moment. If we're kind of imagining this little trinket inside, I mean, it's very, very decorative. It's also functional. You could open the door, you can put the little stool out for our little tiny empress to stand on to get into the carriage. I mean, it is decked out.
00:36:27
Speaker
This egg is now at the Fabergé Museum in St. Petersburg but Bianca I do have a little picture of it and it's kind of crazy even just looking at the size of the carriage next to the egg. It almost looks like it doesn't fit inside the egg like it it must be a
00:36:44
Speaker
perfect fit. Giana, I was thinking the same exact thing this image here. There's no way it fits in there just no or I wonder if it somehow collapse like if the carriage folds up in any way. Yeah, otherwise, it's just precision precision to to the max. It's crazy kind of like a
00:37:05
Speaker
Little bit of a like ship in a bottle moment for me. Oh Absolutely, which is another image or another egg that I have seen in Richmond there was one of the eggs that was Completely see-throughs glass and there was this amazingly intricate setup
00:37:29
Speaker
in the center of the egg, but it was meant to be so you could see all of this kind of inner workings that was happening inside of it. It's so cool. I love that. So this next egg is one of my favorites. I just think it's so completely unique and I have never seen this image before. It doesn't look like a quintessential frappage egg because it's a little bit more inventive.
00:37:55
Speaker
So this is also one of the many Fabergé imperial eggs presented to Czar Nicholas III, to his mother, the Dowager Empress Marina Fedorovna. The bay tree egg is constructed from enamel and jeweled jade. Among its leaves is a tiny lever disguised as a fruit that activates a hinged
00:38:20
Speaker
circular top that reveals a feathered songbird that rises and flaps its wings, turns its head, opens its beak and sings.
00:38:33
Speaker
So it's like this little, just the most beautiful music box you've ever seen in your life. The egg is said to have been based on the design of a famed 18th century orange tree, mechanical, which is why the piece was for years mislabeled as the orange tree egg. So it's also just like, this is a very like expensive egg, and I'm sure it's even more expensive today.
00:39:03
Speaker
I think this is kind of like an old timey price that I found because I think then it was like 12,000 rubles, which would be like $100,000 today. But nah, it's gotta be a pretty penny. But I just think it's so... This thing has to be worth well over a million dollars. It's just very unique because of its...
00:39:27
Speaker
base it's this little tree and the trunk of the tree is like covered in a little like protective like gate like a little box but then on top of that it has its own little stand like it's in this garden but the garden is sanctioned off with these little ropes and I just if you zoom in folks like zoom in on this little tree with these little jewels and the engraved
00:39:54
Speaker
Leaves that are made out of jade. I Just can't it's the most stunning one This is my expert opinion. I think also why I like this one, too Is that it reads as spring so many of the other ones are just very Imperial right and they just feel royal not that this doesn't
00:40:18
Speaker
but it hearkens back to this idea of Easter and spring as like we resonate with it today. So I think there's also something that's a little bit more kind of like modern in a way about this one, which I like. The music box one was my favorite, but this next one is Von Habsburg's favorite egg. And it's a winter egg, or as I would like to label it, the frozen Elsa egg.
00:40:49
Speaker
Talk about something that looks very modern and kind of like kitsch. This egg like doesn't look expensive to me. When I look at it in this photo, it almost looks like it's made of like plastic and silver. So this egg, the winter egg was I guess actually designed by a person named Alma Teresa Pill and given by Czar Nicholas II to his mother, the Dowager Empress.
00:41:19
Speaker
in 1913. The egg is made of rock crystal carved as thin as glass embellished with engraving and ornamented with platinum and diamonds to resemble for us so we have this like I think what makes it so like modern and kitsch to me is that we have this imagery of a snowflake that's something like you would see today like it's a it's a
00:41:44
Speaker
snowflake on a micro scale, right? And it's stand. I mean, it's on a stand that's essentially hearkening back to a block of melted ice. And it looks like it's made out of resin.
00:42:02
Speaker
So the surprise that's inside this egg is a platinum basket full of flowers made out of gold and diamonds and I think the article that I found stated that it's 1,378 diamonds in total is a part of this Faberge egg. It kind of gives me vibes also just thinking of other like pieces of royal art when we looked at the portrait
00:42:31
Speaker
of Queen Elizabeth that was at Warhol did that was encrusted with actual diamonds on her crown and the lines of her figure. Like that is what this is kind of giving me. I'm not entirely sure where this egg is now but in 2002 it was sold at auction for $9.6 million to a private collector. There's something so
00:42:59
Speaker
interesting about the phenomenon of Faberge eggs, where I think many people today know what they are. But for a really long time, I just knew that a Faberge, oh, this person has a Faberge egg, that was kind of something that was relevant to movies and popular culture. You saw it in the prime show, the Romanovs, where they have that fabric, but I feel like
00:43:24
Speaker
having a Faberge egg was a statement for a long time that I didn't know what it actually meant like what is it what is a Faberge egg. I learned a lot if you ever have the chance to go to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. They have the most amazing collection not only of Faberge eggs but on Faberge as a kind of gem
00:43:48
Speaker
and
Egg Decoration Across Cultures
00:43:49
Speaker
a diamond house similar to something like Tiffany's or Cartier like Fabergé made these amazing picture frames that you like household objects for
00:43:59
Speaker
royal family as well that you might kind of see an association to something like Tiffany's with our lamps or things like that. But it's such a fascinating lifestyle to have all of these completely encrusted objects and the ornamentation and detail of every single one of these
00:44:21
Speaker
Is is so wild to me, but I feel like yeah just for a long time. I wasn't entirely sure what that actually meant You know, Bianca. I'm actually really glad that you brought up
00:44:31
Speaker
Tiffany's because in my head I've been kind of equating something that's so iconic to house of Fabergé and That also just led me to think we know that Tiffany's operates differently, but it of course is still in operation today So I just looked up that today the brand Fabergé is owned by a company called Fabergé Limited and is used solely for jewelry items and gemstones so I actually wasn't sure if
00:45:00
Speaker
that kind of line or company somehow was still in operation because of course if we're going back to like Romanoff history, there's a reason why Faberge eggs
00:45:12
Speaker
stopped being made because of that tragic history. If we think about our obsession with eggs kind of from this history, how is it lending itself to other cultures and how do we use them, we're all still kind of doing the same thing, which is really decorating them.
00:45:30
Speaker
I think just something about the surface of an egg is so kind of like it lures you in. It kind of demands to be decorated like a blank canvas. I was also thinking about just other natural elements we use that come from animals that we also decorate something like ivory, which of course is not ethical.
00:45:54
Speaker
but it is a part of art history. And I feel like it sounds so odd to be like, how did you just hollow out an egg and you're decorating something that is so thin and so fragile? But using bone, ivory, egg, these are still all natural elements that has been used throughout art history. So when you kind of
00:46:17
Speaker
equate it to those other things, it's maybe not as absurd as we kind of think it is when we're just looking at this decoration. Ivory is something that's traditionally carved out and decorated in a very sculptural way, whereas something like a painted egg, you know, is more bright and colorful. And we have those kind of painted aspects at our disposal when looking at egg. So let's look at the craft Pazenki.
00:46:44
Speaker
Ukrainian egg decoration called pazenki is thought to date back to pre-Christian times based on the designs and beliefs about them. These may be examples of the earliest style of these eggs. Eggs from Ukraine and the surrounding region are among the most elaborate wax resistant designs found anywhere with many layers of colors.
00:47:05
Speaker
We also say layers and what I'm assuming from this too is because it is a wax resist method. The lace like designs in cross hatching are made from a really fine stylist.
00:47:19
Speaker
called ekista, and it's very similar to European designs achieved by scratching. Similar designs are found on eggs used by people who celebrate Easter and those who celebrate Naurids in Ukraine, also known as the Persian New Year. So these traditions seem to have influenced each other. And of course, kind of stemming back from again, the Ukrainian designs have just spread all throughout different parts of Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
00:47:49
Speaker
If we think about the color red in comparison to something like Asian cultures, I read that a red-dyed egg is also given as a gift. So we also still have this idea of gift-giving when it comes to something like this ornamentation of an egg.
00:48:09
Speaker
And I do kind of want to pinpoint on this idea of gift giving. We haven't done an episode on gift giving and it's actually been something that I kind of would like to dive into a little bit more. That there is something about holidays that requires a gift.
00:48:30
Speaker
When we think about something like the Fabergé egg as it contains something, there are a lot of comparisons to this idea of a wrapped present and how this is just the most expensive decorative wrappings that you've ever seen when it contains that object. Of course it's very artful but I also
00:48:51
Speaker
think that it's this idea of cultural presentation, it's this idea of a holiday, it's this idea of gift giving. It's all these things kind of wrapped up in one, which also makes them so special. I don't know. They're just so beautiful. And
00:49:06
Speaker
Who is on Pysanky TikTok because I do have some TikToks that I have shared in our resources because they show you the wax cast resist method. There are several colors that are traditional and what I love about it is that this method is printmaking. It's such an easy way to think about it.
00:49:29
Speaker
you put your wax on first where you want the egg to be white, right? It's the same thing with printmaking. What you're carving away first is what is going to be white, right? So I just love the, when you think about those processes, how they're the same. And this is just such a good example to kind of utilize that process, because I know it's like really hard for us to wrap our minds around.
00:49:58
Speaker
Also, Gianna,
Eggs in Nature and Family Traditions
00:49:59
Speaker
what you said about gift-giving and eggs reminded me of Red Notice, the Gal Gadot Rock movie that we talked about, because don't they give eggs as a gift? It's like the whole premise is they're looking for these, like golden eggs. And like someone wants them, wants Gal Gadot to get the eggs so that they can give it to their daughter on their wedding day. Yeah, I mean,
00:50:26
Speaker
Eggs are so weird. I mean, if we think about what an egg actually is, it's basically like an egg that we consume as part of a hen's menstrual cycle is quite interesting. But it's crazy. I mean, that's what this yolk is. It's this infertile baby chick and what it contains. There is a Canadian goose outside of my
00:50:55
Speaker
work right now who is laying eggs in a little patch of grass in our parking lot and it's blocked off with cones and
00:51:04
Speaker
It's just crazy how I have seen her get up once from her little eggs that she's been sitting on once. And then she has her little male counterpart Canadian goose that is very aggressive towards cars that come into the area. I mean, this goose is like charging at cars. And those are kind of like aggressive animals. They're not my favorite.
00:51:29
Speaker
but what do these eggs actually contain and I don't know it's just like I'm like wow nature as I'm staring out my work window. No I also watched Jurassic Park last night and I was thinking about you know the part where they have like the dinosaur comes out of the egg and I just like couldn't get over how fucking wild it is to me that
00:51:53
Speaker
I know it's a movie and they're bringing dinosaurs back to life, but I couldn't get over the fact that dinosaurs lay eggs and this raptor is just hatching from an egg. Ew, right, that something like a prehistoric animal multiplies and produces in the same way that basically we all do. Right. I don't like it.
00:52:16
Speaker
I know it's so odd. Which is why I'm getting ready for these little, have you ever seen a baby Canadian goose? Those things are fucking dinosaurs. They look, because their feet are so long and their little fluff balls. So my parking lot is just about to be like covered in little dinosaurs.
00:52:35
Speaker
I don't know how to feel about that. Kind of scared for you. I'm a little scared too because that one, I mean like I don't park near it because I just watch this goose charge at cars. Yeah, no. I mean he is aggressively protecting her. Very nice. You know for his mother goose to be, I don't like geese but I don't like birds. I don't like birds.
00:53:05
Speaker
The geese have come back to the Boston Common and I am not a happy gamer walking through the park. I think the last thing that will end on in terms of the Fabergé egg is the ways in which they open them up. I don't know if you guys grew up with little decorative
00:53:26
Speaker
like jewelry boxes as a kid that were made out of ceramic, but they have that little metal edge to them, that clasp. And there's also something, again, kind of going back to that milk glass candy dish that I had, and also these little decorative ceramic jewelry boxes that I had. You know, I'm thinking about, yes, this is an outlandish decorative object that something like a royal family is able to gift to their imperial
00:53:56
Speaker
significant other, but also it must be nice. But also, what are these other little objects that we had in our house that can be equated in kind of the same context? Yeah, yeah. Gianna, the music box one that you also presented just is giving me like Anastasia vibes. And I always think about that Anastasia exhibition that we went to. And it's I
00:54:25
Speaker
by no means have anything that remotely resembles something like a Faberge. I don't know if they had them for sale, like fake eggs at the Anastasia exhibition gift shop. But I do have this little box, like this little gift box, I guess, that I just love and I still have it. Is it the black one?
00:54:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's so decorative and beautiful, but it just gives, you know, it, it reminds me of the movie Anastasia 2, like this, the one that you talked about, your favorite one, the tree, like my music box. I know. You know what I was thinking about too, actually, this is what I'll end on, is our aunt Donna had a couple
00:55:17
Speaker
Decorative eggs they weren't Faberge eggs. They were painted They were painted by Zinky eggs. Do you remember that she had a black one? Yeah, I do. I don't know she Was like a huge collector of them But she had them in that little decorative kind of display case. Yeah, I remember
00:55:41
Speaker
kind of similar to the design on your music box, it being all black and having this very stark, like floral design on it. Yeah. Yeah. And I've been thinking about that, but we have a picture of us. I know we at least painted eggs one time because there's a picture of us with like Adriene at the kitchen table. So I'll try to find that last mom for it.
00:56:07
Speaker
Yeah, send us pictures of the eggs you have in your houses because because I know that you have some decorative egg object just hanging out. I also was a commercial came on the other day and it was talking about like, we have all the eggs that you like, classic, cage free, free range. And I was like, I love how like, caged
00:56:32
Speaker
hormone injected birds are called classic eggs. So the cheap eggs where we're like harming these chickens or these hens in like the worst way, these are classic eggs. Love that.
Episode Conclusion and Future Tease
00:56:48
Speaker
It was hilarious. Marketing 101. Marketing 101.
00:56:53
Speaker
Well, thank you Gianna for talking all about these beautiful eggs. We are going to be off this next week for Easter. So give you guys some time to paint some eggs. So we will not be here on April 19th.
00:57:09
Speaker
Like Gianna said, hopefully you're painting your own eggs. And don't forget that we need your questions for the personal advice episode. We need those by April 21st, four-hour episode on April 26th. That is when we will be back for you guys. All right, everybody, we will talk to you all soon. Bye.
00:57:31
Speaker
Art Pop Talk's executive producers are me, Bianca Martucci-Vinc. And me, Gianna Martucci-Vinc. Music and sounds are by Josh Turner and photography is by Adrian Turner. And our graphic designer is Sid Hammond.
00:58:02
Speaker
you