This miniature basket with lily-of-the-valley flowers is located in the Fabergé Museum. It was made in 1895-1898 by Mikhail Perkhin, the House of Fabergé’s head workmaster. It originally belonged to Princess Marina, who would go on to become the Duchess of Kent and was the granddaughter of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, the brother of the Russian Emperor Alexander III.
It consists of a gold-woven basket brimming with moss made of green gold and crowned with pearl lily-of-the-valley flower buds on golden stems with nephrite leaves. Like wild pansies, lilies-of-the-valley had special significance in Russian culture. They were associated with weddings and served as a symbol of marital bliss. It was also held that the first lilies-of-the-valley that appear in early spring herald the end of winter.
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas II, was very fond of the subtle fragrance of these flowers and would order entire train carriages full of them from the south of France for her rooms. Another basket with lilies-of-the-valley made by Fabergé, similar to the one in the Museum, was gifted to the Empress during her visit to the 1896 All-Russia Industrial and Art Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod. It was one of her most treasured presents, and it was always on her table in the Alexander Palace right until the Russian Revolution of 1917.