Grand Duke Michael Pavlovitch Service: A Louis XVIII silver-gilt two-handled tea tray, Jean-Charles Cahier, Paris, 1819-25

oval on eight double-pawed feet, mahogany-based, the sides decorated with a border of swans holding floral garlands below peacocks, separated by floral wreathes enclosing tazze of fruit, classical heads, and the Grand Ducal cypher under a crown, beaded and leaf-tip borders, fruit-cluster handles; now on a modern wood stand.

Grand Duke Michael Pavlovitch
Probably Alexander Lyudvigovich, 2nd Baron Stieglitz (d. 1884)
Stieglitz Museum or Polovtsov family
Confiscated by the Soviet Government circa 1917 and sold abroad
Christie's Geneva, November 8, 1977, lot 291

one central support missing underneath but still stable, silver base very slightly uneven, possibly thinly lacquered, otherwise good, crisp
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The monogram is that of Grand Duke Michael Pavlovitch (1798-1849), the fourth son of Czar Paul I and Empress Maria Feodorovna and brother of Czars Alexander I and Nicholas I. He visited Paris in 1814 with the Allies, travelled throughout the Russian Empire on his return, was named Commander of the Guards' Infantry Brigate and helped found the High School of Artillery in St. Petersburg. He fought against Turkey and received the Order of St. George.  In 1831 he was named Chief of all of the Military Schools in Russia. He married in 1824 his cousin Princess Helen of Württemberg (d. 1873); the couple had six daughters.

Between 1819 and 1823 Carlo Rossi built a magnificent palace for the Grand Duke, now the State Russian Museum.  It was conceived from the beginning as a showplace of Russian magnificence; as it neared completion, the press reported that it "will serve to embellish St. Petersburg, while the elegant taste of the inner décor ranks it among the leading European palaces."[1]  In 1825 Mrs. Disbrowe, wife of a British diplomat, wrote, "Yesterday we went in a body... to see the gold and silver plate, china and glass, given to the Grand Duke Michael, with a new palace by the Emperor; very handsome... a great many naked ladies as handles and pedestals, the good things in the dishes are to keep them warm, I suppose."[2]

The china was the famous Michaelovsky service, created at the Imperial Porcelain Factory between 1819 and 1822, but the gold plate had been ordered in Paris.  The initial order was placed with Martin-Guillaume Biennais, Napoleon's goldsmith.  The dinner service for Grand Duke Michael, eventually to comprise over 1,000 pieces, was a prestigious and extensive command, but Biennais' golden age was over.  Towards the end of 1821, he ceded his workshop to Jean-Charles Cahier, who was much closer with the restored Bourbons.  The Michael Pavlovich service includes pieces by both makers, and French marks for both before and after 1819.

Grand Duke Michael left no male heirs; his collections were dispersed amongst his daughters, and after his wife's death in 1873 the Palace fell into decline until acquired by Nicholas II for the Russian Museum.   The French silver-gilt service seems to have been acquired by the financier Baron Alexander von Steiglitz (1814-1884), Court banker and first chairman of the Bank of the Russian Empire .  The Baron's adopted daughter, Nadzheada (1843-1908), was supposedly an illegitimate daughter of Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich.  The Baron gave a million rubles to found a school of art and industry, and his son-in-law, state councilor Alexander Polovtsov (1832-1909), assembled an extraordinary museum of decorative arts for the school's instruction, later transferred to the Hermitage.

After the Revolution, the service was confiscated by the Soviets and portions sold abroad. The Hermitage has some pieces from the service, including another two-handled tray by Cahier, of similar form but with different motifs on the sides (illustrated Under the Sign of the Eagle: Art of Empire, St. Petersburg 1999, p. 72).  Other pieces are displayed in the Kremlin, the Metropolitan Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Fondation Espirito Santo in Lisbon, while a significant group of pieces was sold Christie's London, December 1, 2004, lot 438.

[1] Elena Ivanova, "Michaelovsky Palace" in Palaces and Gardens of the Russian Museum, p. 26
[2] Audrey Kennet, The Palaces of Leningrad, p. 91