LATE 18TH CENTURY AND LATER, POSSIBLY BY JOHANN ZEKH

This chandelier - together with a pair of Imperial Russian gilt-bronze and rock crystal candelabra that were inscribed with yellow-painted Cyrillic inventory marks G.D.P. for Gatchina Palace, St. Petersburg (sold at Christie's, New York, 17-18 November 1999, lot 610; $101,500) - was acquired from the Koenigsberg heirs in Buenos Aires in the 1990s. By family repute, the candelabra and chandelier had been acquired together – and both share a number of features in common, including the large rock crystal ovoid bodies, three-sided obelisks surmounted by ring and circular drop finials issuing ormolu sprays hung with drops, and the S-scrolled branches. It is therefore conceivable that this chandelier may also have originally formed part of an Imperial commission or decorative scheme at Gatchina. However, the lack of any Cyrillic stencilled inventory numbers prohibits identifying this chandelier conclusively with anything at Gatchina or elsewhere; and although there were certainly extensive sales at Lepke, Berlin, in the early 1930s, these items generally displayed Cyrillic marks applied by the Soviet Government in an inventory of all Imperial property undertaken in 1926. It is conceivable that chandeliers – if they were still hanging – could have escaped the stencilled inventory numbers in the 1926 exercise. Moreover, it could also have been acquired directly from Russia before that – as in the case of the closely related chandelier from Empress Maria-Feodorovna’s bedroom at Pavlovsk Palace, similarly without stencils, which was also unmarked and had been acquired by Georges Bemberg (1892-1970) after the Russian Revolution (sold anonymously at Christie's, London, 4 July 2019, lot 124).
This ‘Catherine’ chandelier is a rare survival from a relatively short production run of about fifteen years that occurred in St. Petersburg in the latter part of the 18th century, during the reign of Catherine II. It probably belongs to a group of chandeliers supplied to the Imperial household by the Russian bronzier Johann Zekh of St. Petersburg, based on its close resemblance to one probably furnished to Tsar Paul I for St. Michael’s Castle, St. Petersburg, and subsequently moved to Maria-Feodorovna’s bedroom at Pavlovsk Palace (acquired by Georges Bemberg (1892-1970) after the Russian Revolution and thence by descent until sold Christie’s, Paris, 17 November 2010, lot 323, and subsequently ‘The Exceptional Sale’, Christie’s, London, 4 July 2019, lot 124 (£347,250 inc. premium)).
A native of German origin, Zekh established his workshop in the Russian capital in 1795, where he is listed in the records of the guild of bronziers. By the late 1790s, his name became synonymous with the creation of the most outstanding chandeliers in Russia, noted in the St. Petersburg Journal as one of the greatest masters of the speciality. Following his delivery of a lantern-chandelier in 1796 for the apartments of the grand-duke Alexander Pavlovitch at the Winter Palace, he was awarded his second commission by the Imperial Cabinet (on 13 October of the same year), to supply eight monumental chandeliers for the throne room (known as the salle Saint-Georges). By the time of Empress Catherine’s death in November 1796, three such chandeliers had been completed and accepted by her successor Tsar Paul I, who had them moved to the St. Michael’s Castle (his new residence in the city), and then to the palace at Tsarskoie Selo, where the chandeliers remain today.
Zekh is known to have supplied a total of 21 chandeliers of 14 different models, and 6 lanterns of varying sizes for Tsar Paul I’s St. Michael’s Castle, built between 1798 and 1801 and decorated in the most luxurious and advanced taste. Zekh chandeliers followed different designs: some had shafts in coloured glass, others in cut-crystal in the English manner (as in this example), and others in white opaline glass reminiscent of porcelain, intricately hung with flower chains and drops.
The present chandelier shares many of the same features as the other examples by Zekh conserved at Pavlovsk: the enormous rock crystal ‘fountain’ to the upper section issuing ormolu rushes; the tier of finely-cut long prisms issuing sprays; the crystal swags hanging from the lower corona; and perhaps most strikingly, the finely-chased ormolu sections with foliate motifs, so characteristic of Zekh’s oeuvre.
It differs from its continental counterparts in its delicacy, lightness and innovative design. Period records reveal the great expense of these lavish late 18th-century chandeliers. In 1797, for example, the intendant of count Nikolai Petrovitch Cheremetev reported seeing two eighteen-light chandeliers with ruby-coloured glass shafts at 2.5 archines high (approximately 180 cm.) in the workshop of Karl Gottfried Dreyer, for the exorbitant price of 2000 roubles.

This is an edited version of a note supplied in 2019 by Emmanuel Ducamp, art historian and author of various publications on works of art in Russian collections.