A pair of Vienna-style porcelain circular plaques, circa 1890

The Girl or the Vase, otherwise known as The Presentation of the Slave was shown by the Polish artist Henryk Siemiradzki at the 1878 Exposition Universelle, Paris, winning the artist a gold medal and the Légion d’honneur. Victor-Julien Giraud’s work was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1867, gaining Giraud a medal and critical acclaim. Both works were popular engravings and widely circulated making them ideal for porcelain painters to copy on to plaques and ornamental forms.

Henryk Siemiradzki (1843-1902) was born to a Polish noble family and after initially studying natural sciences moved to St Petersburg to study at the Russian Academy of Arts. Early success was bolstered by the popularity of this 1878 work. Examples of his grand historical works, which are often drawn from Greek and Roman antiquity and the New Testament, are represented in state collections in Europe and Russia and he is well-known for producing two monumental curtains for the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Cracow and the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet.

By contrast, his contemporary Victor-Julien Giraud (1840-1871), a pupil of the history painter François-Edouard Picot has a short-lived career, exhibiting at the Salon throughout the 1860s. It was cut short by the artist’s untimely death serving in the national guard following the Parisian uprising after the Siege of Paris.