A miniature sedan chair made by the House of Faberge around the turn of the twentieth century is expected to fetch more than $1 million at auction, in a rare appearance for one of fewer than ten such objects known to survive. The piece leads Sotheby's sale on 16 December of treasures from the collection of A La Vieille Russie, the New York dealer known for decorative arts.

Crafted in varicoloured gold with pink enamel and rock crystal, the chair is described by Sotheby's as the most technically accomplished version of its kind, in the exuberant Louis XV style associated with the firm's head workmaster Henrik Wigstrom. Its head of decorative arts worldwide, Helen Culver Smith, said the object shrinks a full-size sedan chair to miniature scale while retaining every detail, using enamel and other materials to imitate fabrics and furnishings, in work she called technically extraordinary and hard to replicate even today.

The chair carries notable provenance. Its first recorded owner was Leopold Rothschild, whose family were prominent Faberge patrons. He bought it in 1910 for £146, roughly £22,300 or about $29,910 in today's money, as a gift for his brother. It is making its auction debut in the December sale.

If it reaches its estimate, the chair could rank among the most expensive Faberge sedan chairs ever sold. The current record for the category is £788,750, or about $1.04 million, paid at Christie's in 2017 for a gold and guilloche enamel version. The house's overall auction record remains the $30.2 million achieved by its Winter Egg at Christie's London in 2025, but Sotheby's argues collectors are increasingly turning to categories beyond the 52 surviving imperial eggs.