BADEN-BADEN, Germany—The world's first museum devoted to the Russian Imperial jeweler Faberge will not be in Moscow, as originally planned, but in the southwest German spa town of Baden-Baden, a favorite retreat of wealthy Russians, Bloomberg reports.

Scheduled to open on May 9, the new museum, which is owned by Russian billionaire collector Alexander Ivanov, will house "the best works" from the collector's holdings of some 3,000 Faberge works, he says, which is estimated to be worth about $1.5 billion.

Ivanov told Bloomberg that he chose the German town because it's “close to France, a resort for the rich, and historically it has always been the most popular resort for Russians.” He decided not to build in Russia, he said, because of the bureaucracy and the high cost of building there. The German space cost about €17 million ($22 million) to buy and renovate.

A highlight of the inaugural exhibition will be a 1902 Faberge egg that Ivanov bought at Christie's London in 2007 for £8 million ($16.5 million). An engagement gift to Baron Edouard de Rothschild, it has a clock and a diamond-encrusted cockerel that emerges every hour and flaps its wings.

Billionaire Viktor Vekselberg and the State Hermitage Museum both announced plans several years ago to open museums that would display, at least part-time, Faberge holdings, but both projects have been put on hold, likely because of insufficient funding.

Ivanov, who also operates a private gallery called the Russian National Museum in Moscow, plans to open a museum of antique cars adjacent to his Faberge Museum.