BY THE IMPERIAL PORCELAIN FACTORY, PERIOD OF NICHOLAS I

'When he commissioned the Kremlin Service in 1837, Nicholas introduced a new source of ornament into the rich vocabulary of Russian decorative arts, making use for the first time of Old Russian motifs from the seventeenth century, dating to a period before Peter came to the throme. Believing that the study of Russian sixteenth- and seventeenth- century works of art was a legitimate source of artistic inspiration, Nicholas in 1830 sponsored Fedor Solntsev, a young graduate of the Academy of Arts, in an effort that was to have a major impact on the deocartive arts for the rest of the century. Solntsev's task was to copy the treasures in the Kremlin Armory and wall ornaments in various churces throughout Russia. Nicholas was so pleased with the results that he immediately commmissioned Solntsev to provide drawings for the restoration of the old Terem Palace in the Kremlin and to design a large banquest service. The Kremlin Service was intended for five hundred people, with two thousand dinner plates, one thousand soup plates, and one thousand dessert plates. The painting of the dessert plates was still not completed in 1847, ten years after Nicholas ordered the service. Solntsev's design for the dessert plate was taken from a gold and enamel plate made in the Kremlin Armory workstops for Peter's father, Tsar Aleksei, in 1667.' (Anne Odom, Russian Imperial Porcelain at Hillwood, Washington, D.C., 1999, p. 56.)