Lot Essay
This and the following four lots are all engraved with either inventory number 1 or, in a few cases, 2. They are also prick-engraved in cyrillic RIZH which may be the Russian adjectival form of the name of the city of Riga. Baron A. de Foelkersam (Inventaire de l'Argenterie, conservee dans les Garde-meubles des Palais imperiaux: Palais d'Hiver, Palais Anitchkov et Chateau de Gatchina, St Petersburg, 1907) records a Riga service as being "sent from Riga by the Duke of Courland in 1742" which was made by the Augsburg silversmiths Johann Ludwig Biller and Johann Jacob Bruglocher but this is obviously too early for the current pieces unless they were made as additions to the earlier service. Alternatively it is possible that there was a second unrecorded Riga Gubernatorial service ordered by Catherine the Great, circa 1780
The present pieces are very much in the Louis XV style favoured by Catherine the Great and perhaps best demonstrated by the pieces in the magnificent Orloff service, she ordered as a gift to her lover Count Gregory Orloff, made mostly by Jaques Nicolas Roettiers, circa 1770 in Paris. All the various Augsburg makers of the present pieces are recorded as having worked on Gubernatorial services ordered by Catherine the Great. Heckenhauer and Blau worked on the Perm service (Foelkersam, op. cit pp. 137-143) and all five silversmiths that made the present pieces collaborated on the Kharkov service (Foelkersam, op. cit pp. 150-155). Foelkersam however seems to have misread on the Kharkov service, the Augsburg date letter- an A beneath the pineapple- as for 1735-36. Presumably the mark was in fact the A for 1781-83 as on the current pieces. It should also be noted that there were a number Gubernatorial services which were issued in the 18th Century, but their composition is not recorded by Foelkersam, indicating that they had perhaps already left the Imperial Collection by 1907
The present pieces are very much in the Louis XV style favoured by Catherine the Great and perhaps best demonstrated by the pieces in the magnificent Orloff service, she ordered as a gift to her lover Count Gregory Orloff, made mostly by Jaques Nicolas Roettiers, circa 1770 in Paris. All the various Augsburg makers of the present pieces are recorded as having worked on Gubernatorial services ordered by Catherine the Great. Heckenhauer and Blau worked on the Perm service (Foelkersam, op. cit pp. 137-143) and all five silversmiths that made the present pieces collaborated on the Kharkov service (Foelkersam, op. cit pp. 150-155). Foelkersam however seems to have misread on the Kharkov service, the Augsburg date letter- an A beneath the pineapple- as for 1735-36. Presumably the mark was in fact the A for 1781-83 as on the current pieces. It should also be noted that there were a number Gubernatorial services which were issued in the 18th Century, but their composition is not recorded by Foelkersam, indicating that they had perhaps already left the Imperial Collection by 1907