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Lot Essay
These magnificent vases are masterpieces of the Russian art of stonecutting: their origins are also remarkably well documented, having been recorded in both the Tauride Palace and Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg, giving eloquent testimony to the extraordinary richness of the palaces of Imperial Russia at the end of the 18th century.
THE COMMISSION AND THEIR SUBSEQUENT HISTORY
They were originally part of a set of six, all of Korgon porphyry and originally conceived without mounts, ordered by Count Alexandre Sergeyevich Stroganov (1733-1811) in the late 1780s. The first pair was delivered to St. Petersburg on 5 June 1789 at a cost of 338 roubles each, while the second pair was delivered soon after at a cost of 676 rubles 59 kopecs. Designs for the vases were drawn up in St. Petersburg and then sent to the stonecutting workshops.
Stroganov was a close confidante and art advisor to Catherine the Great and a passionate collector himself, whose cabinet of minerals on Nevsky Prospect has recently been restored. He was also appointed President of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts from 1800-1811, so it was natural that he should be so closely involved in such a prestigious Imperial commission, as the Imperial Stonecutting Workshops were administered under the Academy and on occasion he personally paid shortfalls in the annual budget to safeguard the artistic integrity of the production.
Four of the six vases were delivered in 1790 to the Tauride Palace, the vast palace in St. Petersburg which was a gift of Catherine the Great to Prince Grigory Potemkin (1739-1791) and was designed by the architect Ivan Starov. Potemkin was one of the most influential figures at court, an important military leader and long time lover of Catherine, who was rumored to have married her in secret and at the time of the building of his palace was at the very height of his power. The palace was furnished it on a grandiloquent scale with one of the largest domed halls in Russia connected to a 256 feet colonnaded hall, and a winter garden over 600,000 square feet. Following his death, the Empress purchased Tauride Palace and engaged in extensive renovations, all of which were dismantled following the accession of her son Paul I in 1796 who loathed anything that had given his mother pleasure and had the palace turned into a cavalry barracks.
Paul busied himself on his own building projects, creating at breakneck speed from 1797-1801 a fantastical new palace under the direction of the architect Vincenzo Brenna, the Mikhailovsky Castle or St. Michael’s Castle for which every façade was a different style, ranging from French Classicism to the Italian Renaissance and Gothic styles. It was literally conceived as a castle, complete with a moat, as he was constantly in fear of assassination. Four of the vases, including almost certainly the vases offered here, were then transferred to this new palace, at which time the current superb ormolu mounts were ordered for them from the Swiss-born bronzier Pierre Agis (1752-1828). The fact that the bronzes were conceived ten years after the vases were cut is borne out by the fact that the main collar and goat’s head masks are not attached in any way to the stone, but can simply be lifted off.
Sadly, Paul had very little time to enjoy his new palace and was assassinated in 1801, following which the contents of the Mikhailovsky Palace were eventually removed and sold to members of the court and at public auction. One pair of vases was then acquired by Stroganov, and remained in the family until being confiscated and offered for sale in 1931 in Berlin as part of a series of sales organized by the Soviet government, when interestingly they were described as being French. They were not sold and were returned to Russia to the Hermitage Museum, eventually to be transferred to Pavlovsk Palace where they remain today (see illustration of this pair in the 1931 catalogue).
THE IMPERIAL STONECUTTING WORKSHOPS
The art of stonecutting has been prized in Russia since early in the eighteenth century as a specifically national art, utilizing Russian-trained craftsmen and the country's vast resources of mineral deposits. A series of geological expeditions to the Ural and Altai mountains sponsored by the Academy of Arts in the second half of the eighteenth century yielded amazing discoveries of hardstones, including kalkan jasper (discovered in 1756 by Ivan Krasavin), green breccia, rhodonite (discovered in 1781-83), lazurite and many different varieties of porphyry as on these vases (discovered in 1786 by the River Korgon in the Altai Mountains of Siberia). Lapidary workshops had been in existence since 1742 when the first Imperial workshop was established at Peterhof. Additional workshops closer to the huge mines and quarries followed in 1751 at Ekaterinburg, the heart of the Ural Mountains, and in Western Siberia at Kolyvan in 1786. As the Imperial administration had the sole right to mine for hardstones, the products of the Imperial workshops incorporating hardstones were almost exclusively created for the Imperial court and for use as diplomatic gifts.
THE BRONZIER: PIERRE AGIS
Decorative bronzes to mount hardstones were supplied by the Imperial bronze factory, whose founding in 1778 was specifically to meet this demand, or by independent craftsmen. Pierre Marie Louis Agis (1752-1828), a Swiss bronze smith, sculptor and jeweller, was active in St Petersburg from 1779 to 1804 and from 1807 until his death in 1828. He taught in the sculptural ornament class of the Academy of Arts, managed the State Bronze factory from 1810 to 1812 but also owned his own bronze workshop producing candelabra, wall-lights, vases etc. from his own models (see I. Sychev, Russian Bronze, Moscow, 2001, p. 222) Apart from the superb chased and gilt finish of his gilt-bronze sculptures and objects, Agis' work is characterized by its naturalistic and sculptural ornamental vocabulary. One of his earliest known works is a sculpture of Empress Catherine the Great as Minerva in the Hermitage, St Petersburg; this is signed ‘P.AGI’ and dated 1781. Conceived at approximately the same time is a set of three neo-classical lapis lazuli vases with ormolu mounts at Peterhof, which have recently been attributed to him as well also (see ibid., p. 44-45). Agis continued to create elaborate and richly gilded mounts for hardstone vases in the early 19th century, many of which were intended for the Hermitage and the ongoing furnishing of the Palace of Pavlovsk for Empress Maria Feodorovna, often following the designs of Andrei Voronikhin, for instance. a crazed quartz vase with siren handles with mounts documented to be by Agis, as well as a Korgon porphyry vase with dolphin handles with mounts attributed to Agis, both executed circa 1802 and now in the Hermitage and which give an interesting parallel to the superb mounts on these vases (see ibid., p. 84-86).
Catherine the Great introduced a ban on foreign bronzes in 1793 which remained in effect until 1820- the bronzes produced by Agis were of such high quality that they were often accused of being imported from France. In a court case in 1802 Stroganov had to intercede on his behalf, declaring that ‘the bronze that he, Agis, has worked, is in no way inferior to that imported from France, and therefore I beg you not to be surprised that the quality of these items does the artist no less honour than foreign ones’ (see ibid, p. 85).
Christie’s would like to thank Paul Dyson, scholar of Russian hardstones, for his help in preparing this catalogue entry. These vases will appear in his forthcoming book on Russian Hardstones.
THE COMMISSION AND THEIR SUBSEQUENT HISTORY
They were originally part of a set of six, all of Korgon porphyry and originally conceived without mounts, ordered by Count Alexandre Sergeyevich Stroganov (1733-1811) in the late 1780s. The first pair was delivered to St. Petersburg on 5 June 1789 at a cost of 338 roubles each, while the second pair was delivered soon after at a cost of 676 rubles 59 kopecs. Designs for the vases were drawn up in St. Petersburg and then sent to the stonecutting workshops.
Stroganov was a close confidante and art advisor to Catherine the Great and a passionate collector himself, whose cabinet of minerals on Nevsky Prospect has recently been restored. He was also appointed President of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts from 1800-1811, so it was natural that he should be so closely involved in such a prestigious Imperial commission, as the Imperial Stonecutting Workshops were administered under the Academy and on occasion he personally paid shortfalls in the annual budget to safeguard the artistic integrity of the production.
Four of the six vases were delivered in 1790 to the Tauride Palace, the vast palace in St. Petersburg which was a gift of Catherine the Great to Prince Grigory Potemkin (1739-1791) and was designed by the architect Ivan Starov. Potemkin was one of the most influential figures at court, an important military leader and long time lover of Catherine, who was rumored to have married her in secret and at the time of the building of his palace was at the very height of his power. The palace was furnished it on a grandiloquent scale with one of the largest domed halls in Russia connected to a 256 feet colonnaded hall, and a winter garden over 600,000 square feet. Following his death, the Empress purchased Tauride Palace and engaged in extensive renovations, all of which were dismantled following the accession of her son Paul I in 1796 who loathed anything that had given his mother pleasure and had the palace turned into a cavalry barracks.
Paul busied himself on his own building projects, creating at breakneck speed from 1797-1801 a fantastical new palace under the direction of the architect Vincenzo Brenna, the Mikhailovsky Castle or St. Michael’s Castle for which every façade was a different style, ranging from French Classicism to the Italian Renaissance and Gothic styles. It was literally conceived as a castle, complete with a moat, as he was constantly in fear of assassination. Four of the vases, including almost certainly the vases offered here, were then transferred to this new palace, at which time the current superb ormolu mounts were ordered for them from the Swiss-born bronzier Pierre Agis (1752-1828). The fact that the bronzes were conceived ten years after the vases were cut is borne out by the fact that the main collar and goat’s head masks are not attached in any way to the stone, but can simply be lifted off.
Sadly, Paul had very little time to enjoy his new palace and was assassinated in 1801, following which the contents of the Mikhailovsky Palace were eventually removed and sold to members of the court and at public auction. One pair of vases was then acquired by Stroganov, and remained in the family until being confiscated and offered for sale in 1931 in Berlin as part of a series of sales organized by the Soviet government, when interestingly they were described as being French. They were not sold and were returned to Russia to the Hermitage Museum, eventually to be transferred to Pavlovsk Palace where they remain today (see illustration of this pair in the 1931 catalogue).
THE IMPERIAL STONECUTTING WORKSHOPS
The art of stonecutting has been prized in Russia since early in the eighteenth century as a specifically national art, utilizing Russian-trained craftsmen and the country's vast resources of mineral deposits. A series of geological expeditions to the Ural and Altai mountains sponsored by the Academy of Arts in the second half of the eighteenth century yielded amazing discoveries of hardstones, including kalkan jasper (discovered in 1756 by Ivan Krasavin), green breccia, rhodonite (discovered in 1781-83), lazurite and many different varieties of porphyry as on these vases (discovered in 1786 by the River Korgon in the Altai Mountains of Siberia). Lapidary workshops had been in existence since 1742 when the first Imperial workshop was established at Peterhof. Additional workshops closer to the huge mines and quarries followed in 1751 at Ekaterinburg, the heart of the Ural Mountains, and in Western Siberia at Kolyvan in 1786. As the Imperial administration had the sole right to mine for hardstones, the products of the Imperial workshops incorporating hardstones were almost exclusively created for the Imperial court and for use as diplomatic gifts.
THE BRONZIER: PIERRE AGIS
Decorative bronzes to mount hardstones were supplied by the Imperial bronze factory, whose founding in 1778 was specifically to meet this demand, or by independent craftsmen. Pierre Marie Louis Agis (1752-1828), a Swiss bronze smith, sculptor and jeweller, was active in St Petersburg from 1779 to 1804 and from 1807 until his death in 1828. He taught in the sculptural ornament class of the Academy of Arts, managed the State Bronze factory from 1810 to 1812 but also owned his own bronze workshop producing candelabra, wall-lights, vases etc. from his own models (see I. Sychev, Russian Bronze, Moscow, 2001, p. 222) Apart from the superb chased and gilt finish of his gilt-bronze sculptures and objects, Agis' work is characterized by its naturalistic and sculptural ornamental vocabulary. One of his earliest known works is a sculpture of Empress Catherine the Great as Minerva in the Hermitage, St Petersburg; this is signed ‘P.AGI’ and dated 1781. Conceived at approximately the same time is a set of three neo-classical lapis lazuli vases with ormolu mounts at Peterhof, which have recently been attributed to him as well also (see ibid., p. 44-45). Agis continued to create elaborate and richly gilded mounts for hardstone vases in the early 19th century, many of which were intended for the Hermitage and the ongoing furnishing of the Palace of Pavlovsk for Empress Maria Feodorovna, often following the designs of Andrei Voronikhin, for instance. a crazed quartz vase with siren handles with mounts documented to be by Agis, as well as a Korgon porphyry vase with dolphin handles with mounts attributed to Agis, both executed circa 1802 and now in the Hermitage and which give an interesting parallel to the superb mounts on these vases (see ibid., p. 84-86).
Catherine the Great introduced a ban on foreign bronzes in 1793 which remained in effect until 1820- the bronzes produced by Agis were of such high quality that they were often accused of being imported from France. In a court case in 1802 Stroganov had to intercede on his behalf, declaring that ‘the bronze that he, Agis, has worked, is in no way inferior to that imported from France, and therefore I beg you not to be surprised that the quality of these items does the artist no less honour than foreign ones’ (see ibid, p. 85).
Christie’s would like to thank Paul Dyson, scholar of Russian hardstones, for his help in preparing this catalogue entry. These vases will appear in his forthcoming book on Russian Hardstones.