BY THE IMPERIAL PORCELAIN FACTORY, ST. PETERSBURG, PERIOD OF NICHOLAS II, WITH LATER BLACK OVERGLAZE STATE PORCELAIN FACTORY MARK DATED 1923

The end of figurative painting, which had been proclaimed by Malevich, led him and his followers like Suetin and Chashnik into an area of practical activity, of which ceramics was only a part. For the suprematists the colour white assumed a sense of the 'absolute' china was an ideal medium. For them the white body of the china seemed to express weightlessness; this was of crucial importance as they attempted to overcome the sensation of material mass. The same composition is illustrated in Suprematism: 34 Drawings, published in Vitebsk in 1920, based on his oil painting of 1915 'Aeroplane Flying'. For similar plates see N. Lobanov-Rostovskii, Revolutionary Ceramics: Russian Porcelain 1917-1927, (London, 1990), plate 147; L. Andreeva, Soviet Porcelain, (Moscow, 1975), p.124 illustrated, and Christie's London, 5 October 1989, lot 368 for a plate numbered 660/7, sold for (44,000.