a soviet porcelain figure "sailor with a flower", Natalia Danko, State Porcelain Factory, 1919

a Soviet sailor in blue uniform and a cap marked Sevastopol is shown holding a bouquet a flowers with a single blossom in his teeth, stamped green factory mark and the date 1919, partially obscured

Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky, Revolutionary Ceramics: Soviet Porcelain, 1917-1927, New York and London, 1991, p. 95, no. 95.
Kenji Kaneko, et al, Roshia avangyarudo no togei: modan dezain no jikken. Russian Avant-Garde Ceramic Art, Tokyo, 2003, p. 90, no. 101.
T.N. Nosovich and I.P. Popova, Gosudarstvennyi farforovyi zavod, 1904-1944, St. Petersburg, 2005, 343.

overall good condition
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Natalia Danko is generally credited with reinvigorating the porcelain figure as a medium by depicting figures who typified revolutionary everyday life. The figure of the Russian sailor at leisure is one of the earliest and most important examples of this innovation.  Sailors like the member of the Crimean Fleet seen here were particularly potent visual reminders of the changes wrought by the Russian Revolution.  Under the tsars, members of the Russian Imperial Navy had revolted repeatedly, in part because of the terribly restrictive conditions under which they lived.  They were prohibited from attending many public events and from riding streetcars, and were entirely banned from certain parts of major cities. After the revolution, the sight of sailors on leave became common and images of sailors at leisure, often with their girlfriends or, as in this case, seemingly preparing for romance, became a popular subject among a number of artists, most notably Boris Kustodiev, who completed a series of Baltic Fleet sailors and their sweethearts taking part in public festivities.