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Lot Essay
The present vases relate to designs by the celebrated architect and designer Andrei Voronikhin (1759-1814), who provided these for the Imperial Lapidary workshops at Peterhof. They are not just unusual for their size but also for their early date of execution around 1800-1810. They are also particularly close to further designs for malachite vases by I.I. Galberg, executed in the 1820s
The Russian vogue for stone-cutting led to the creation of some of the most beautiful objets d'art, more famously those in malachite. Malachite is a stalagmitic form of copper carbonate, and the technique used in the manufacture of objects and furniture is known as Russian mosaic. The malachite was sawn into very thin slices and then applied to a stone or metal ground, the veins being laid to form pleasing patterns. The whole piece was then highly polished with the joins barely visible. Peterhof is the oldest stone-cutting factory, just a few miles from St. Petersburg, however the huge distances from the mines and quarries meant that it was soon joined by the new imperial factory at Ekaterinburg, in the heart of the Ural Mountains. The third most famous factory was Kolyvan, in western Siberia, which specialised in colossal pieces made from the stones extracted from the Altai Mountains.
The Russian vogue for stone-cutting led to the creation of some of the most beautiful objets d'art, more famously those in malachite. Malachite is a stalagmitic form of copper carbonate, and the technique used in the manufacture of objects and furniture is known as Russian mosaic. The malachite was sawn into very thin slices and then applied to a stone or metal ground, the veins being laid to form pleasing patterns. The whole piece was then highly polished with the joins barely visible. Peterhof is the oldest stone-cutting factory, just a few miles from St. Petersburg, however the huge distances from the mines and quarries meant that it was soon joined by the new imperial factory at Ekaterinburg, in the heart of the Ural Mountains. The third most famous factory was Kolyvan, in western Siberia, which specialised in colossal pieces made from the stones extracted from the Altai Mountains.