a russian gilded silver sauce boat on stand from the orloff service, nichols and plinke, st. petersburg, 1859

oval sauce boat on spreading foot, the upper rim and handle realistically cast and chased with grape vines, the body with the Russian state coat-of-arms on a matted ground on both sides, the base and oval foot chased with rising palms and leaf tips, the stem with a row of applied beads, on attached shaped oval stand, edged with engraved C-scrolling within chased scroll-overlapped laurel borders, with inventory mark no. 283 incised and stamped on underside and number 10 stamped on base on stand

Baron A. Foelkersam, Inventaire de l'Argenterie conservée dans les garde-meubles des Palais Impériaux, 1907

some wear and scratching to surface
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catherine the Great commissioned the Orloff Service from the workshop of the French silversmiths Jacques Roettiers and his son Jacques-Nicolas Roettiers for her own use at court but by 1772 presented the service to her lover, Count Gregory Orloff.  The sculptor Etienne-Maurice Falconet served as Catherine's agent, and the final service, a triumph of early Neoclassicism, comprised over 3000 pieces for sixty diners. Delivery of the pieces from Paris continued until 1776, by which time Catherine had broken with Orloff.  After his death in 1783, Catherine regained possession of the service. It remained in the Imperial collections through the nineteenth century and was supplemented as necessary by Court goldsmiths. Nicholls & Plincke (1789-1880), the well-known "Magasin Anglais" of St. Petersburg, was responsible for providing many of the additions to the service made in the 1850s.  Even with the additions, by the time of Baron Foelkersam's survey of 1907, only 1,000 pieces from the Orloff Service were still held by the Court.  The often unidentified maker R.K. (P.K. in Cyrillic) is Robert Kokhun (Colqhoun), who, along with Heinrich Plinke, had bought out the firm in 1851.  Colqhoun was a multifaceted entrepreneur; in 1854, he also acquired the workshop and all the models of Carl Johann Tegelsten.  Colqhoun is usually recorded as having been active only between 1874 and 1883, however, Igor Sychev of the Hermitage Museum has more recently shown that Heinrich Plinke left the firm to Colqhoun after the former's retirement in 1865 and that Colqhoun,  whose mark appears on a vast quantity of silver made for the court, ran the firm until 1878.  See Igor Sychev, Russian Bronze, Moscow, 2003, p. 227 and, for a similar piece from additions to the service dated 1850 and signed by Carl Johann Tegelsten, see Sotheby's Geneva, 18 and 19 May 1998, lot 249.