Crimson & Blue & Cerulean

Blue (pure, maximum saturation electric) and Cerulean (deep, clear — named for the Latin caeruleus — of the sky and sea — darker and more saturated than sky blue but cleaner and less green than teal) are complementary blues that together span the most richly complete range from maximum saturation to the most naturally sky-deep. Against Crimson's passionate warm, this creates the most naturally Fabergé and most sumptuously imperial warm-cool split-complementary palette.

The palette is the visual world of Imperial Russian Fabergé jewellery — specifically the Easter eggs created by the house of Peter Carl Fabergé (Карл Фаберже — 1846-1920) for Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II of Russia (1885-1917 — 50 Easter eggs were created in this period — the most celebrated series of luxury objects in the history of Russian art and among the most celebrated luxury objects in the history of the world). The Fabergé imperial palette: the deep vivid crimson of the Fabergé rubies and the most celebrated deep-red guilloché enamel (a specific Fabergé speciality — translucent enamel applied over an engine-turned — guilloché — metal ground, creating a deep, luminous, perfectly translucent color — the most celebrated Fabergé enamel colors are the deepest and most vivid guilloché reds, fired to the most perfectly consistent depth of crimson-to-rose red); the pure electric blue of the Fabergé deep cobalt and ultramarine guilloché enamel (the most characteristic and most immediately 'Fabergé' of all the Fabergé colors — the extraordinary deep electric blue of the guilloché enamel over silver or gold ground); and the deep cerulean of the Fabergé sapphires and pale cerulean guilloché enamel (the pale cerulean blue of the most famous Fabergé Imperial Egg — the 'Winter Egg' — 1913 — and the various cerulean and light blue enamel colorways used in the most delicate and most precisely toned Fabergé objects).