BY THE IMPERIAL PORCELAIN FACTORY, ST PETERSBURG, PERIOD OF ALEXANDER III

Details

A Porcelain Dinner Plate from the Raphael Service
By the Imperial Porcelain Factory, St Petersburg, Period of Alexander III
Circular, the centre decorated with Demeter and a putto painted en grisaille on a red ground in a hexagonal frame, on white ground, surrounded by a border of classical-style friezes with three red ground roundels, three cream ground interjections and six stylised panels, at intervals, within gilt banding, the panels with raised beading, decorated with monochrome mythical, stylised and realistic animals, gilt rim and foot, the reverse with paper label inscribed 'RUSSIAN IMPERIAL EXHIBIT' attached, marked under base with gilt crowned monogram of Alexander III and dated 1887
9½ in. (24.5 cm.)

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.

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Lot Essay

Commissioned in 1893 for the palace at Tsarskoe Selo, the Raphael Service was the largest and most important service produced by the Imperial Porcelain Factory during the reign of Alexander III (1881-1894). The designs were conceived from Raphael's frescoes in the loggias of the Vatican, which were reproduced in the Winter Palace by Quarenghi during the reign of Empress Catherine II. The project was overseen by the chief of the workshop of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, Leonard Schaufelberger, and the designs were personally approved by Emperor Alexander III.
Finally completed in 1903, the service comprised fifty place settings. In 1904 it was transferred to Anichkov Palace.

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