Sophie von der Goltz
Head of Sale
Lot 121
A Russian, Imperial Porcelain Factory, plate from the service made for Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, circa 1760
2 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£2,000 - £3,000
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A Russian, Imperial Porcelain Factory, plate from the service made for Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, circa 1760
With moulded gilt scalloped borders and raised concentric trompe l'oeil trellis pattern and flowerheads, all painted in pink and gilding, 25.2cm diam., black enamelled factory mark of double-headed eagle holding a scepter, incised numerals and cyrillic letters, faint traces of red inventory number '250' (minor rubbing)
Footnotes
During her rule (1741-1761), Empress Elizabeth Petrovna was a pivotal figure of enlightenment and patron of the arts. She founded several major cultural and educational institutions, including the University of Moscow and the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Among her most enduring legacies was the establishment, in 1744, of the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory in St. Petersburg, a factory that continues to operate today.
Earlier attempts to produce porcelain in Russia, sponsored by her father Peter the Great and by her predecessor Anna Ioannovna (reigned 1730–1740), had proved unsuccessful. It was only under Elizabeth's rule that the long-held ambition to create Russian porcelain on Russian soil was realised, thanks to the pioneering experiments of Dmitrii Vinogradov (1720–1758). The manufactory's earliest output consisted of smaller and intimate objects such as cane handles, teaboxes and snuffboxes. By 1756, however, Vinogradov and his team had designed and built a kiln large enough to produce a complete table service.
The first of these services, was intended for Empress Elizabeth herself. Also known as "Her Own" (Sobstvennyi) service, it was initially intended for twenty-five couverts. As Natalia Sipovskaia observes, "each piece and every detail of its décor—from the trellis pattern to each garland of flowers—was moulded and sculpted by hand." For further discussion of the manufactory's earliest services, see I. Popova and N. Sipovskaia, essays in "Shedevry russkogo farfora XVIII veka iz sobraniia galerei 'Popov i Ko.'," Moscow, 2009, pp. 52–53 and 56–62.