Lot Essay
This elegant set of chairs was probably executed after a design by the celebrated architect and designer Andrei Voronikhin. Voronikhin was trained in Moscow in 1777, mainly in miniature painting, perspective and architecture. His first major commission was the alteration of the interiors of Stroganoff Palace in St. Petersburg. Important commissions followed from other Russian aristocratic families, and subsequently from the Imperial Court, where his talent had not been unnoticed. Voronikhin was commissioned to carry out restoration works at Pavlovsk Palace, which was damaged by fire in 1803. He made several designs for sets of chairs, and worked closely with some of the St. Petersburg workshops, in particular that of Heinrich Gambs (1765-1831). The present set is closely related to a suite of seat-furniture in Pavlovsk Palace, with identical snake-entwined back, which was probably executed around 1805 in the workshop of Gambs, after a design by Voronikhin. (A. Chenevière, Russian Furniture, the Golden Age 1780-1840, London, 1988, p. 159, fig. 155)