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Lot Essay
The arms are those of Branicki for General Count Francois Xavier Branicki (1731-1819) who married Alexandra Vassilievna Engelhart in 1781.
This sugar dish is part of the sumptuous service commissioned by the newly-widowed Countess Branicki in 1819, the bill for the service, dated May 13 of that year, is preserved in the archives of the Maison Odiot in Paris. The service comprised 140 pieces and cost in excess of 300,000 francs.
This sugar dish is one a pair described in the order book as "deux sucriers femmes debouts plateaux carrés" and again in the bill as "2 sucriers femmes debouts plat et carrés 19.4.2 à 450." The latter figure of 450 represents the cost of the goldsmith's work; the total cost of for the pair would have been around 9,800 francs.
The Countess Branicki was a woman of contrasts; her love of the rich and splendid is well exemplified by Odiot's magnificent service but, by contrast, her collection of art and precious objects were housed in rooms panelled in the plainest wood. Her true passion was for horticulture, and both the houses where she spent her last years, wintering at Bélaïa-Tzerkov and spending her summers at Alexandrie, had famous parks and gardens.
As niece of Prince Potemkin, Alexandra Vassilievna Engelhardt was presented at the court in St. Petersburg at the age of 18, in 1772. She became an immediate favorite of the Empress Catherine and accompanied her on many of her travels. The salacious stories that the young maid-of-honor was in fact Catherine's daughter by Potemkin were put about in the later years of her life by French writers with absolutely no proof whatsoever, but it is fairly well-documented that she was Potemkin's mistress as well as his niece.
In 1781, Alexandra Engelhardt married Count François-Xavier Petrovitch Branicki, of an old and powerful Polish family. Trained as a soldier and diplomat, Count Branicki held several posts before being sent to St. Petersburg. He became great friends with the Polish ambassador, Stanislaus Poniatowski, who was also Catherine the Great's lover. Branicki enjoyed the favor of Catherine and, after supporting Russian suzerainty over the Sejm (or Polish parliament), he was awarded vast estates in Bélaïa-Tzerkov after this rich province was ceded to Russia after the Partition of Poland in 1793.
Countess Branicka accompanied the Empress on her journey to the Crimea in 1787. After Catherine's death, she and her husband retired to their estates where the Count died in 1819. The Countess did not return to court until 1824 when she accepted the post of ober-gofmeistrina, or Senior Court Chamberlain. Having inherited the estates of her uncle Potemkin and her husband, she was thought to be worth 28 million roubles.
The Branicki service was exhibited by Odiot in the exhibition Produits de l'Industrie Français au Louvre, held from August 25 to September 30, 1819. After Countess Branicka's death in 1838, the magnificent dinner service remained in the Branicki family and was probably transferred to Wilanow, when the family inherited that property in 1892. The tea and coffee service remain at Wilanow, but the majority of the pieces were sold by the Russian government in the late 1920's. Much of the service was acquired by a German banker, Dr. Fritz Mannheimer, who subsequently settled in Amsterdam. Much of his portion of the service is now in the Rijksmuseum, including a soup tureen. Other pieces were dispersed; a pair of soup tureens, matching that in the Rijksmuseum, sold from the collection of C. Ruxton Love, Christie's, New York, April 28, 1992, and another single tureen sold at Sotheby's, Geneva, November 12, 1990, lot 98. A wine cooler sold at Sotheby's, New York, November 5, 1986, lot 72.
This sugar dish is part of the sumptuous service commissioned by the newly-widowed Countess Branicki in 1819, the bill for the service, dated May 13 of that year, is preserved in the archives of the Maison Odiot in Paris. The service comprised 140 pieces and cost in excess of 300,000 francs.
This sugar dish is one a pair described in the order book as "deux sucriers femmes debouts plateaux carrés" and again in the bill as "2 sucriers femmes debouts plat et carrés 19.4.2 à 450." The latter figure of 450 represents the cost of the goldsmith's work; the total cost of for the pair would have been around 9,800 francs.
The Countess Branicki was a woman of contrasts; her love of the rich and splendid is well exemplified by Odiot's magnificent service but, by contrast, her collection of art and precious objects were housed in rooms panelled in the plainest wood. Her true passion was for horticulture, and both the houses where she spent her last years, wintering at Bélaïa-Tzerkov and spending her summers at Alexandrie, had famous parks and gardens.
As niece of Prince Potemkin, Alexandra Vassilievna Engelhardt was presented at the court in St. Petersburg at the age of 18, in 1772. She became an immediate favorite of the Empress Catherine and accompanied her on many of her travels. The salacious stories that the young maid-of-honor was in fact Catherine's daughter by Potemkin were put about in the later years of her life by French writers with absolutely no proof whatsoever, but it is fairly well-documented that she was Potemkin's mistress as well as his niece.
In 1781, Alexandra Engelhardt married Count François-Xavier Petrovitch Branicki, of an old and powerful Polish family. Trained as a soldier and diplomat, Count Branicki held several posts before being sent to St. Petersburg. He became great friends with the Polish ambassador, Stanislaus Poniatowski, who was also Catherine the Great's lover. Branicki enjoyed the favor of Catherine and, after supporting Russian suzerainty over the Sejm (or Polish parliament), he was awarded vast estates in Bélaïa-Tzerkov after this rich province was ceded to Russia after the Partition of Poland in 1793.
Countess Branicka accompanied the Empress on her journey to the Crimea in 1787. After Catherine's death, she and her husband retired to their estates where the Count died in 1819. The Countess did not return to court until 1824 when she accepted the post of ober-gofmeistrina, or Senior Court Chamberlain. Having inherited the estates of her uncle Potemkin and her husband, she was thought to be worth 28 million roubles.
The Branicki service was exhibited by Odiot in the exhibition Produits de l'Industrie Français au Louvre, held from August 25 to September 30, 1819. After Countess Branicka's death in 1838, the magnificent dinner service remained in the Branicki family and was probably transferred to Wilanow, when the family inherited that property in 1892. The tea and coffee service remain at Wilanow, but the majority of the pieces were sold by the Russian government in the late 1920's. Much of the service was acquired by a German banker, Dr. Fritz Mannheimer, who subsequently settled in Amsterdam. Much of his portion of the service is now in the Rijksmuseum, including a soup tureen. Other pieces were dispersed; a pair of soup tureens, matching that in the Rijksmuseum, sold from the collection of C. Ruxton Love, Christie's, New York, April 28, 1992, and another single tureen sold at Sotheby's, Geneva, November 12, 1990, lot 98. A wine cooler sold at Sotheby's, New York, November 5, 1986, lot 72.