A tiny Fabergé figure sat forgotten in a New York attic until a family cleanout exposed its royal past; the 20th-century trinket later sold for $5.2 million

Few stories in the world of rare antiques are as remarkable as the discovery of a tiny Fabergé figure hidden for decades in an Upstate New York attic. What initially appeared to be an old decorative object turned out to be an exceptionally rare work connected to Russia’s imperial court. When the seven-inch-tall hardstone figure was finally offered at auction in 2013, intense bidding drove its hammer price to $5.2 million, far above its presale estimate of $500,000 to $800,000. The extraordinary discovery became another reminder that priceless pieces of art history can sometimes remain hidden in ordinary homes, boxes and attics for generations.

The object was created in 1912 by the workshop of Peter Carl Fabergé, whose name has become synonymous with extraordinary Russian decorative arts. Rather than depicting an abstract design or an elaborate Easter egg, this particular piece portrayed Nikolai N. Pustynnikov, a Kamer-Kazak, or Chamber Cossack, who served as a personal bodyguard to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Emperor Nicholas II. The figure was part of a distinctive series of highly detailed hardstone portraits produced during the final years of Imperial Russia. Fabergé's hardstone figures were prized for their realism, craftsmanship and ability to capture recognizable people and characters in miniature form.

The historical background makes the discovery even more compelling. Nicholas II commissioned a figure of Pustynnikov and another Chamber Cossack serving Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna in 1912. These figures were not ordinary souvenirs; they represented the remarkable craftsmanship associated with Fabergé at the height of its imperial reputation. The company was particularly celebrated for its elaborate Imperial Easter Eggs, but its workshops also produced jewelry, silver, enamel, porcelain and hardstone objects. According to Fabergé, the hardstone human figures were exceptionally rare, with estimates suggesting that only a limited number were produced. Portrait figures representing identifiable historical individuals were rarer still.


The figure's journey from imperial Russia to an attic in Rhinebeck, New York, reads almost like an art-world mystery. After leaving Russia, the object eventually reached the United States and was sold in New York during the 1930s to a Fabergé collector. At some point afterward, its whereabouts became unknown. Decades later, during the summer of 2013, the figure was discovered in the attic of a deceased collector's descendant in Rhinebeck. Importantly, it was reportedly accompanied by documentation and its original box, details that helped specialists reconstruct its provenance and establish its identity.

Once experts recognized what had been sitting unnoticed in the attic, the tiny sculpture entered a completely different world. Stair Galleries in Hudson, New York, presented the Fabergé figure for auction on October 26, 2013. Its presale estimate was already substantial at $500,000 to $800,000, but the eventual bidding far exceeded expectations.

After approximately 15 minutes of intense competition, the hammer came down at $5.2 million. Fabergé described the sale as a record for a hardstone figure, while contemporary reports noted that the result dramatically surpassed the previous $1.8 million auction price for a hardstone figure sold at Sotheby's New York in 2005.

The buyer was Wartski, the renowned London dealer specializing in jewelry and works of art, which acquired the figure for its collection. Contemporary reporting said the purchase price including the buyer's commission came to just under $6 million. The sale demonstrated why provenance and craftsmanship matter so greatly in the international antiques market.

A small object can command millions not because of its physical size, but because of the combination of rarity, artistic quality, historical association and documented ownership. In this case, the connection to Empress Alexandra's personal bodyguard gave the miniature figure a direct link to the final era of the Russian Imperial Court.

The discovery also belongs to a larger tradition of valuable Fabergé objects being unexpectedly rediscovered. Fabergé's history was disrupted by the Russian Revolution, after which many imperial treasures were dispersed, sold or removed from Russia. Some pieces eventually surfaced in private collections far from their original homes. HISTORY has also documented the extraordinary case of a Fabergé egg purchased by an American scrap-metal dealer for $13,302 before it was later identified as one of the Imperial eggs created for the Romanov family. Such discoveries demonstrate how easily the significance of an artwork can become obscured when objects pass through generations without their full history being understood.

The $5.2 million Fabergé attic discovery therefore stands as more than an auction headline. It is a story about how history can survive in miniature, waiting silently for someone to recognize it. The figure of Nikolai Pustynnikov spent decades away from museums and royal collections before its identity was restored and its extraordinary value revealed. Its journey from a 1912 imperial workshop to a forgotten New York attic and finally to a multimillion-dollar auction illustrates the unpredictable afterlife of great works of art. For collectors, historians and anyone fascinated by hidden treasures, the episode offers a striking lesson: sometimes the most remarkable pieces of the past are not displayed behind glass—they are waiting in places where nobody thinks to look.