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The history of Easter eggs
The egg had symbolic traits since ancient times. The eggs, in fact, have often dressed the role of the symbol of life itself, but also of the sacredness: according to some pagan and mythological beliefs, the sky and the planet were considered two hemispheres that were going to create a single egg, while the ancient Egyptians regarded the egg as the fulcrum of the four elements of the universe (water, air, earth, and fire).
The tradition of exchanging eggs at Easter or during the spring equinox seems to have always existed. Romans, Babylonians, Persians, Chinese and other peoples celebrated the arrival of spring just exchanging eggs, as greetings and good wishes.
From a symbolic point of view, the egg crosses every age and culture.
From a purely religious point of view, the egg is a symbol very often associated with life and genesis. Even in paganism, the egg is a symbol of fertility and eternal return of life.
In Christian iconography, the egg is the symbol of rebirth. In this sense, for the first Christians, the hatching of the chick symbolically represented the resurrection of Christ, celebrated in the spring. For this reason the egg is associated with the Easter holiday.
In 1290, King Edward of England commissioned 450 eggs embellished with gold foil to give them to the members of his court.
Louis XIV (The Sun King) inaugurated the tradition of richly decorating the ostrich eggs of the Versailles zoo to donate to his court.
However, the insufficiency of real eggs led to their substitution with golden eggs, ivory and porcelain. In the eighteenth century, King Louis XV commissioned for Madame du Barry a large decorated egg, which contained a cupid figurine, created by the court goldsmith.
Rosebud Fabergé Egg from Fabergé Museum, Saint-Petersburg
The most famous and most precious eggs are certainly those of the Russian goldsmith master Peter Carl Fabergé, who in 1883 received from Tsar Alexander the Commission for the creation of an Easter gift for Tsarina Maria.
He was inspired by the Russian pysanky, eggs with writings and drawings made in the house, to be blessed in the church and then given away, and to the system of the Matrioske: the very first Fabergé egg is crafted from a foundation of gold. Its opaque white enameled "shell" opens to reveal a matte yellow-gold yolk.
Faberge Egg: Kelkh Hen Egg from Fabergé Museum, Saint-Petersburg
This in turn opens to reveal a multicolored gold hen that also opens. The hen contained a minute diamond replica of the imperial crown from which a small ruby pendant was suspended. The gift surprised the imperial court, so the Tsar ordered Fabergé a special and unique egg for each Passover. Fabergé created 59 eggs, fifty-two for the Tsar and seven for the Russian nobleman Alexander Ferdinandovich Kelch, all unique and original works.
Also to Louis XIV (The Sun King) is attributed the desire to imitate with chocolate the ostrich eggs. It was his cooks who made the first chocolate eggs and they thought to fill it with a surprise.
From that regal desire to the current spread of industrial chocolate eggs as we know them today, it has been a long time.
It is in the XIX century that appear, in Germany and France, the first specimens of eggs entirely of chocolate, in the sense that they were completely full, not having the emptiness inside.
In 1819, François Louis Cailler founded the first Swiss chocolate production plant in Vevey, where, thanks to a particular machine, cocoa was transformed into a manipulable paste. His chocolate was the first to be marketed in the form of tablets.
The history of the Chocolate Egg has a breakthrough in 1829, when Coenraad Van Houten, a Dutch chemist, invented the cocoa press. It squeezed the cocoa butter out of the bean leaving the powder we now call cocoa.
He also added alkaline salts to powdered chocolate, which helps it mix better with water, and gives it a darker color and milder flavor. This process is called “dutching” after the nationality of the inventor. All of these innovations made chocolate smoother, creamier and tastier.
Then, in 1875, Swiss born Daniel Peter (son-in-law of Henri Nestlé) added condensed milk to chocolate… thereby creating the first ‘milk chocolate.’
The first eggs as we know them today appear in 1875, thanks to the work of the English master chocolatier John Cadbury, but the thickness of the chocolate is still large and uneven.
A breakthrough arrives from Italy, when in Turin the Casa Sartorio invented the system to model the empty shapes for Easter eggs: they are closed hinge moulds that, thanks to the rotating movement of a machine, allow the chocolate to relax on the whole inner surface evenly. In this way are created two identical halves perfectly geometric, which then are "welded" between them.
In the Twenties of the XX century they started to insert a surprise inside: first are simple objects, animals in sugar or confetti, then become more and more precious.
In 1974 Michele Ferrero, the "King of Nutella", said to his collaborators: "Do you know why children like Easter eggs so much? Because they have the surprises inside... So, you know what we need to do? Let's give him Easter every day". So the famous Kinder eggs were born.
The Easter egg, now available all year round, became a real phenomenon of costume and their surprises have conquered several generations of kids.
Two last curiosities.
The primacy of the world's largest chocolate egg is Italian. In the Easter of 2011, in fact, an Italian company, Tosca, has improved the primacy of the Belgian company Guylian, established in March of 2005. The Belgians made an egg 8.32 meters high. The 1,950 kilos of chocolate were nevertheless supported by an internal armour.
The Italians realized one egg without internal structure, 10,39 meters high and weighing 7,200 kilos and with a circumference of 19.6 m at its widest point.
The most expensive chocolate egg, without jewels and precious stones, was created by William Curley, London's Master of chocolate among the most illustrious in the world, and by six other pastry-chefs.
It was sold at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, on 20 March 2012, for 7.000 pounds (around 8.000 euro). The chocolate egg named the 'Golden speckled egg' was made with Amedei Chocolate and edible Gold leaf and filled with couture chocolate and truffles.
The egg was decorated with 12 smaller chocolate eggs, 20 mini chocolate bars and 5 white flowers, and took over three days to make. The egg was estimated to weigh over 50 kg and was approximately 107 cm tall and 54 cm wide.
HFG Law&Intellectual Property
