They’re the royal treasures of the former Russian empire, the magnificent imperial Easter eggs made for the Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II by the St Petersburg jeweller Carl Fabergé. Only 50 were ever delivered, seven have been lost; of the 43 dazzlingly intricate creations still in existence, 15 of the most beautiful make up the climax of the V&A’s sold-out exhibition Fabergé: Romance to Revolution, which is scheduled to run until May 8.

The V&A say that of the 233 objects included in the entire show, 13 have been loaned from Russian institutions, and that to date there have been no requests to return the loans, which they expect to stay on display until the exhibition closes, “at which point we will work closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the lenders to ensure [their] safe return.”

Yet the imperial eggs seem certain to become objects of fraught concern in a new and frightening Cold War that is extending even to the arts. It has already thrown into jeopardy the careers of such stars as Anna Netrebko, probably the most famous operatic soprano in the world, and Valery Gergiev, the great conductor. Russia has been disinvited from Eurovision. Meanwhile the eggs, these extraordinary symbols of Russian wealth and might, continue to draw crowds of visitors daily.

The CEO of Fabergé, Sean Gilbertson, describes them as “some of the most important culturally historic pieces of art ever made… The value that’s on display in those 15 imperial eggs is simply staggering. The Queen owns one called the Mosaic egg. If that was put up for auction today it would probably exceed $100 million.” Before the war in Ukraine, he says, “in our view, you’ve got half a billion dollars of eggs there.”

Among them is the Moscow Kremlin egg, a gift from Tsar Nicholas II to his wife, which consists of ornate towers of gold, silver and onyx around a white enamel cupola. It was crafted between 1904-6 and has been loaned by the Kremlin Armoury Museum. The museum has loaned two other imperial eggs: the Alexander Palace egg and the Romanov Tercentenary egg. Also present is the very first imperial Easter egg, the Hen egg, made in 1884-5 for Nicholas’s father, Alexander III, as a present for the Empress Maria Feodorovna.