PART OF THE PORCELAIN KREMLIN SERVICE
PROPERTY OF A CALIFORNIA CHARITABLE INSTITUTION
PART OF THE PORCELAIN KREMLIN SERVICE

BY THE IMPERIAL PORCELAIN FACTORY (PERIOD OF NICHOLAS I, ALEXANDER III AND NICHOLAS II)

Details
PART OF THE PORCELAIN KREMLIN SERVICE
by the Imperial Porcelain Factory (period of Nicholas I, Alexander III and Nicholas II)
Each with the centre painted with stylized undulating foliage with blue flowerheads, around a rust-colored rosette on black ground with leaf-tip border, surrounded by blue-green palmette motifs at intervals, on burnished and matt gilt ground, further enhanced with varicolored geometric and foliate motifs, the cups and saucers with similar decoration, comprising two large porcelain tazzas, twelve dinner plates and eleven cups and saucers, marked under bases
12¾in. (32.8cm.) diameter, for each tazza
9¼in. (23.8cm.) diameter, for each plate (12)
Literature
N. Wolff, The Imperial Porcelain Factory (St. Petersburg, 1907), pp. 197 and 201

Lot Essay

The Kremlin Service was commissioned by Tsar Nicholas I in 1836 from the Imperial Porcelain Factory, and the design entrusted to the painter and archaeologist, F.G. Solntsev. The motifs were inspired by designs in 17th Century Russian metalwork, for instance the dessert plates by a jewelled, gold and enamelled plate made in 1667 for Natalia Kirilovna, née Naryshkina, wife of the second Romanov Tsar, Aleksei Mikhailovich.

Part of this service was originally offered as part of a 205-piece service in a sale on behalf of the Soviet Government at Christie's, 21 March 1967.

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