A CHINESE EXPORT FIGURE OF A MAIDEN OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE circa 1790-1810

her brown hair tied en queue, wearing a gilt-heightened colorful national costume, and standing with arms akimbo on a chamfered rectangular base decorated with colorful blossoms and leaves on its turquoise-ground sides.

Spink & Son, London, May 5, 1988

New York, International Asian Art Fair, 2002

Neck cracked at lute line but not off, 3mm flake to blue enamel at back of skirt, minor wear to the gilding, 2mm chip on the footrim at back left corner/edge, a 2mm chip on back right corner of footrim.
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This figure probably was based on a colored print from a contemporary book of figures in national or regional costumes, which were particularly popular in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

While Chinese export figures of Europeans of specific nationalities, such as French, Dutch or even Turkish, are well documented, no other figures similar to this Russian Empire maiden appear to have been published.  Commenting on Russia's uneasy trade with China, Le Corbeiller 1974, p. 111, notes that "unlike the Western European countries that were granted sea access to Canton, Russia was excluded from that city and thus from any direct contact with the porcelain trade.  All her commerce with China was carried on via a difficult time-consuming northern land and water route.... [A successful embassy to Peking in 1692] resulted in permission for the Russians to send a caravan annually to Peking where goods could be exchanged,...and in a treaty signed in 1728 Russia was permitted to send one caravan every three years to Peking," an arrangement abandoned in 1755, when trade became largely the province of the private merchants in border towns. 

From "a modest traffic in standard blue and white wares, a more sophisticated market had developed by 1780," and Mrs. Le Corbeiller, p. 112, cites a report of that date: "For some years past the Chinese have brought to Kiachta parcels of porcelain, painted with European figures, with copies of several favourite prints and images of the Greek and Roman Deities."  Given the serendipity of the porcelains that reached Russia through this rudimentary trade, it seems certain that the present figure was ordered specially through one of the Western European East India Companies, perhaps by a Russian diplomat posted in Stockholm, Amsterdam or London.