A Large Russian Silver and Enamel Trompe L'Oeil Two-Handled Tray, Moscow, 1877

the shaped circular tray with spiraled basket rope that is partially covered with various Pan Slavic ornament including folk textiles with finely engraved geometric designs, one textile with champlevé enamel in red and blue with an Old Slavonic inscription reading "It is Good to Remember the Bread and Salt" rendered in a pattern mimicking embroidery, the reverse with intricate floriated monogram.

Christie's New York, February 4, 1981, lot 271, illustrated

overall good condition with minor crack on enamelled textile
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.

Throughout much of the nineteenth century, Russian artists and writer struggled to identify a national style in painting, design, music, theater, poetry, and the novel. Inspired by German Romantic notions of the origin of national identity, many artists argued for using the material culture of the contemporary peasantry as the source of new designs. As they reasoned, the peasantry had largely escaped post-Petrine modernization and, therefore, their creative production served as a repository for Russian visual and oral traditions that had been forcibly eradicated among the upper classes. Russia's silversmiths, for their part, contributed sculptural, trompe l'oeil tablewares minutely chased or cast in parcel gilt to resemble a simple woven basket across which was folded or laid a linen or damask napkin with fringes or, on occasion, a fine embroidered pattern represented in colored enamels. The offered lot is unique among a number of such works both for its size and the unusual reproduction of rope basketry (rush basketry was more commonly represented). Its unique, native "Russian-ness" is added to by the inclusion of a folk aphorism about bread and salt, the most basic elements of the Russian peasant diet. In this period, anthropologists and writers were collecting books of the often-rhyming folk aphorisms in an effort to save native wisdom and linguistic traditions from encroaching modernity. A tray such as this would have been prized for the designer's ability to combine these decorative and linguistic elements with such a skilled hand. The firm of Sazikov was known for producing many such works and Gerasim Loskutov was for some time an employee of this firm.