Kutchinsky's Egg: A Family's Story of Obsession, Love, and Loss

Summary

A riveting, heart-stopping family memoir that blends art, obsession, and love as the author searches for the spectacular jeweled egg that consumed her father’s dreams—and spelled her family’s downfall.

When she was eleven years old, Serena Kutchinsky’s life changed completely. Her father Paul, who owned the high-end jewelry company the House of Kutchinsky, set out to build the world’s largest jeweled egg—one to rival Fabergé’s creations. He succeeded, but at a ruinous price.

When the Argyle Library Egg was unveiled, it was astonishing: it stood two feet tall, made of solid gold and dripping with pink diamonds. But when Paul was unable to secure a buyer, the House of Kutchinsky collapsed, his marriage fell apart, and he sank into a spiral of drink and drugs. Within ten years he was dead. As for the egg, it was seized by creditors and disappeared without a trace. For thirty-five years its location has been unknown.

Over time the mystery of the egg began to eat away at Serena. Why did her father risk everything for the pursuit of this outlandish dream? And where in the world was his decadent, ill-fated creation, valued by some modern estimates at £100 million? Desperate for answers, she set out in search of the egg—and an elusive understanding of her late father. The journey begins in the slums of London’s East End where her great-great-grandparents arrived as Jewish immigrants from Russia—and ends in the most unexpected of places.

Echoing the intimacy of The Hare with Amber Eyes, Kutchinsky’s Egg is a spellbinding historical mystery that delves into the glittering yet shadowy world of high-end jewelry, the rise and fall of a family empire, and the complex bond between a father and daughter.