Lot Essay
The so-called Banquet Services produced by the Imperial Glass Works typically carried monograms of members of the Imperial family. The decoration, based on a French technique of encasing a sheet of enameled gold foil between layers of glass, was first used by the factory in a service presented in 1824 to Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna by the future Emperor Nicholas I. This service became the model for any number of similar services produced by the factory until the 1880s. Although a number of these Banquet Services has been identified, many more await further research.