KUTCHINSKY'S EGG

A daughter investigates her father’s passion.

Journalist Kutchinsky makes her book debut with a family history, centered on her father, Paul Kutchinsky, who, inspired by Fabergé, became obsessed with creating the world’s largest jeweled egg: an opulent 2-foot tall object made of 15 kilograms of gold, encrusted with 24,000 diamonds, featuring mechanized doors that opened to reveal a miniature library and portrait gallery. Paul hoped to sell it to a Middle Eastern oil baron for 7 million pounds, but the egg never did sell, instead plummeting the family into debt; bankrupting the House of Kutchinsky, a famous jewelry emporium that had been in the family for generations; and ending his marriage. “This breathtaking object caused such devastation that, for a long time, my family decried its existence,” the author writes. “Mum raged against it as if it were human.” After her father’s death, the author became obsessed, too, with locating the egg that had apparently disappeared. Her hunt led to startling discoveries about her family, a clan she describes as “Secretive. Machiavellian. Never trusting each other.” She uncovered feuds, betrayals, hatreds, and unlikely alliances—such as her grandfather’s with Oswald Mosley, who helped bring family members to London; Mosley, her grandfather thought, was “‘more rational’ than the other Fascist leaders plaguing Europe.” For years, she left the hunt. She got married, had two sons, and began her career. But in the end, like her father, she became obsessed. With the help of private detectives, museum experts, jewelers, and diamond firms around the world, Serena finally got to see it: “An object of excess. A totem of ambition and passion. A vanity project that spiraled out of control. The embodiment of Dad’s flawed ego. A jagged line marking the end of my childhood.”

An engaging tale of a doomed quest.