Lot 111
Rare Set of Twelve Russian Imperial Porcelain Dinner Plates, from the Raphael Service, periods of Alexander III and Nicholas II, 1884-1903
Lot 111 Details
Rare Set of Twelve Russian Imperial Porcelain Dinner Plates, from the Raphael Service, periods of Alexander III and Nicholas II, 1884-1903
with central red ground hexagonal panels painted en grisaille with classical subjects, the cavettos with gilt Greek key and cream ground borders painted with winged animals, the rims with three interjections, six grey ground panels of grotesqueries and three red ground medallions with figures, all within gilt surrounds on a foliate bordered celadon green ground, the edges and basal rims all gilt, contained in their original brass-bound mahogany case
diameter 9.5" — 24.2 cm.
painted crowned ciphers and dated in red and gilt
Estimate $120,000-$150,000
Additional Images
Provenance:
Wartski, Llandudno, North Wales, 1947
Private collection, Llandudno, North Wales
By descent to the present owner
Note:
Heralded as one of the greatest achievements of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, the Raphael Service was commissioned for the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo in 1883. The design for the service was developed under the supervision of Leonard Schaufelberger, head of the Imperial Art Workshops, with Emperor Alexander III personally overseeing the process. Production took twenty years to complete and would culminate in the most expensive porcelain service ever produced by the factory. In 1904, the service for fifty persons was completed and delivered to the court of Alexander’s wife, the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna.
For the design of the service, the Imperial factory translated the splendid frescoes found in the Raphael Loggia in the Hermitage. These murals were themselves reproductions. In the 1780s, Empress Catherine II (Catherine the Great) ordered the construction of an extension for the Great Hermitage. Its walls and vaults were adorned with copies of the Raphael frescoes of the Vatican loggia, painted by Cristopher Unterberger and his workshop. The rich decorations and basic configurations of the compositions of the Vatican and Saint Petersburg loggias are retained on the service, completely elegant in their simplified imagery.
CONDITION DETAILS
Flat dinner plates, not soup; minor scratches to red ground medallions on three plates (all 1903); faint scratch on centre panel of another (1893); slight wear to gilding at base edge of one plate (1884); minor paint flaw on centre panel of another plate (at left of seated figure playing Pan flute); otherwise in good condition; a crack in the top panel of the box and also in the base panel dates: 1884 (1) 1889 (1) 1890 (1) 1891(1) 1893 (3) 1894 (1) 1903(4)