The painted egg has been present since ancient times in almost all Eastern and Western cultures. In mythology painting eggs is associated with the universal symbolism metaphorically traceable to life, prosperity, resurrection, fertility and wisdom.
Among the archaic and pagan civilizations in which we find decorated eggs we remember in particular the Chinese mythology: the sublime universal principles of the yin and the yang are perfectly balanced and from that complete equilibrium emerged the creator god, born of the egg, which in iconography recalls the Greek god Pan.
For the Saxons, the Etruscans and the Mesopotamian kingdom, the Egyptians and the Mycenaeans, the egg was conceived as a symbol of rebirth and resurrection, of transition, as the guardian in itself of a new life.
This is the cosmic egg, which has the vision of the whole universe as a single living being. Man in antiquity knew that he was an integral part of this eternal cosmos, immersed in the continuous cycle of birth and death.
The painted egg, according to various sources, was present in the ancient pagan rites, in which the goddess of fertility was worshiped in the spring.
Even the ancient Persians were painting eggs for the "Nowruz", the Persian New Year which coincides with the spring equinox. The peasants of ancient Rome used to bury an egg painted red in the fields, a symbol of fertility and therefore favourable for the harvest.
From the tenth century to 1749, the Republic of Pisa set the beginning of the Pisan Year, with the Annunciation and the spring equinox: with a sort of solar clock. At noon on every 25th March, a ray of sunlight penetrates the Cathedral from a round window in the central nave and hits a marble egg.
Precisely because of these propitiatory features some art historians link the portrayal of the ostrich egg of the famous "Pala di Brera", or "Pala Montefeltro" by Piero della Francesca, datable to 1472, commissioned by the Duke of Montefeltro for the birth of the heir of the Duke Federico.
In the history of recent art, the theme of the egg as a metaphor of hope, love and life is recurrent in Fontana's pictorial research, culminating in the famous cut of the canvas, and in particular in the famous painter Salvador Dali.
He often took inspiration from the concept of the symbolic egg, up to celebrating it in a striking way even in his home in Figueres, Spain, whose roof is surrounded by giant reproductions of eggs.
Ostrich eggs
A special few words for painted ostrich eggs, precious objects that boast an ancient tradition. The ostrich egg is sixteen centimeters tall on average: with its perfect shape it is itself a discreet and elegant object, light, smooth to the touch.
In Italy the oldest decorated ostrich egg is kept in the museum of Tarquinia and was found in an Etruscan tomb from the oriental period, in the middle of the seventh century B.C.
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