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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 unusual 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. A stalagmitic form of copper carbonate, 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 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. Related malachite vases include a pair in the Grand Trianon, among an ensemble of pieces made from a gift of malachite from Tsar Alexander I in 1808, and further pairs sold anonymously, Christie's London, 10 July 2008, lot 132, and Christie's London, 7 December 2006, lot 247.
The Russian vogue for stone-cutting led to the creation of some of the most beautiful objets d'art, more famously those in malachite. A stalagmitic form of copper carbonate, 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 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. Related malachite vases include a pair in the Grand Trianon, among an ensemble of pieces made from a gift of malachite from Tsar Alexander I in 1808, and further pairs sold anonymously, Christie's London, 10 July 2008, lot 132, and Christie's London, 7 December 2006, lot 247.