An Important Imperial Porcelain Design

Conceived of as an elegant pair, the form of these vases, with elaborately modelled scrolling handles and a restrained background of gold and white stripes, has stylistic corollaries with the other vases produced by Imperial Porcelain Factory from 1815-1830. The restrained palette, however, dates the present pair to the late 1820s. This particular form of vase was very popular during both the periods of Emperor Alexander I and Emperor Nicholas I and was produced in four sizes. The present pair of vases represent the largest created in this form.

The Artists: Vasily Meshcheriakov and Semyon Golov

One of the main challenges of the decoration of porcelain vases was utilising their three-dimensional nature. Traditionally, a special, framed place was given to the elaborate painting of the front of the vase, with the reverse supporting it stylistically. During the reign of Emperor Nicholas I, many of the vases produced by the Imperial Porcelain Factory were decorated with copies of nineteenth-century and Old Master paintings. Consistent with the European predilection for using academic paintings as porcelain design sources, the middle section of the vase was treated by factory artists as a canvas on which to showcase their work after important paintings. The paintings were typically scaled-down, faithful copies of original works in the Imperial Hermitage, the Academy of Arts or from collections in the imperial palaces in the vicinity of St Petersburg.

Imperial Porcelain Factory artists usually added their names to the vase paintings and the present vases are each signed lower left and lower right, respectively, again suggesting they were to be viewed as a pair. The prominent addition of these signatures highlights the importance of the factory artist’s personal role in the production of the present vases.

Semyon Golov (circa 1783-1849) was one of the Imperial Porcelain Factory’s best copysists, specialising in both history and figural painting. Having trained under A. Adam, he was employed as a painter at the factory in 1814 and rose to the ranks of Master of Painting in 1819.

His contemporary - and also initially a student of Adam - Vasily Meshcheriakov (born 1781) too studied under Adam and specialised in figural painting. Over the course of his career, Meshcheriakov replicated works by Russia’s and Europe’s masters, including Terebemev, Poussin, Albani and van Waelsen.

There are several known collaboration pairs of vases between Golov and Meshcheriakov, including a magnificent pair of Imperial vases which sold at Sotheby’s in 2013 for an astounding £2,210,500 and a pair in the Hermitage dated 1831, which were presented to the Emperor at Easter of that year (one illustrated in N. von Wolf, ed. V. Znamenov, Imperatorskii farforovyi zavod, 1744-1904, 2008, p. 319). The present lot is another fine example of the two artists joining forces to create masterpieces worthy of an Imperial palace.

Porcelain Fit for a Palace:

Two comparative vases of identical form and with the same white striped painted ground, which forms a sympathetic frame for the highly coloured scenes painted on each vase, are illustrated in V. V. Znamenov ed., Imperatorskiy Farforoviy Zavod: 1744-1904, 2008, pp. 314 & 320. The former of which is also painted by Meshcheriakov and the latter of which is in the Pavlovsk State Museum-Reserve.

These classically decorated vases are among the finest achievements of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, and certainly of the quality expected for Imperial Palace pieces. The depth of their painting and the sculpting of their forms, brought Imperial Porcelain pieces like this truly international fame.