A rare Russian porcelain plate from a military service, Imperial Porcelain Manufactory, period of Tsar Nicholas I dated 1842

the cavetto painted with foot-soldiers, the well gilt and engraved with wave-pattern, the border in dark green, partly gilt and tooled with four Imperial Eagles alternating with Cossack military emblems, the rim gilt

In overall good condition, image abraded around the edge, gilding in the well scratched, minor soiling.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Soon after his accession to the throne, Nicholas I (1796-1855) suppressed a rebellion in 1825 by a group of Russian revolutionaries - most of them from aristocratic families - attempting to overthrow the monarch and usurp power, known as the Decembrist Revolt. An authoritarian ruler, the Tsar commemorated throughout his reign the military, from parades to battle paintings. In 1827 he commissioned the Imperial Porcelain Factory to produce a set of military plates for sixty place settings, designed with gilt rims and to be painted with military scenes. The cavettos of the plates were finely painted with subjects taken from the lithographs published in the book Sobranie Mondirov Rossiiskoi Imperatorskoi Armii ( A Collection of Uniforms of the Imperial Russian Army) of 1830, which reproduced drawings by the military draftsmen Fedorov, Belousov and Alexandrov. Some of the compositions on later plates are after drawings and lithographs made by Sauerweid, Shiflar and Kil for the book Russian Imperial Army published in St. Petersburg between 1832 and 1844.

Celebrated for their superlative quality and the precise detailing of their paintings, the military plates were greatly prized and highly sought after. The Tsar, himself very impressed by them, presented his father-in-law, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, a set of over 200 plates which he was to have framed and incorporated into the design of the new pavilion in the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin.

After 1855, the Imperial Porcelain factory continued to produce the plates until the reign of Nicholas II but the lustre of those made in the Nicholas I period was never to be surpassed.

A similar military plate by N. Voronin, dated 1841, is preserved in the Hillwood Museum, Washington D.C.