A Russian Imperial porcelain Easter egg with a miniature of the Apostle Paul, Imperial Porcelain Factory, St. Petersburg, end of the 1850s to 1860s. The Apostle Paul shown with a fine halo and in a red cloak, depicted against a dark sky through which light is beginning to break, the apostle saint looking up toward the heavens, holding his bound Gospel in one hand and a sword in the other, the miniature signed at lower right with Cyrillic initials V.M. (В.М.) for Imperial Porcelain Factory painter Vasilii Nikolaevich Midin), the miniature within a gilt border of scrolls and lattice work, the back of the egg with a finely engraved ciselé radiating star in an acanthus leaf border, the number 34 incised in the paste next to the lower aperture. Height 4 3/8 in. (11 cm).