Catherine The Great’s Imperial Yaroslavl Service: Three George III Silver Meat Platters, George Heming and William Chawner I, London, 1777

Baron A. Foelkersam, Inventories of the Silver of the Court of His Imperial Highness, St. Petersburg, 1907, vol. II, pp. 246-58

Marina Lopato, 2001, pp. 307-12; Lopato 2006a, pp. 79-85

Marina Lopato, State Hermitage Museum Catalogue, British Silver, 2015, pp. 173-180

The backs are engraved as follows:

Large platter pricked with Cyrillic initials for Yaroslavl N 4.

Pair of platters both pricked with Cyrillic initials for the Yaroslavl service and N 6, also stamped 6.

The orders for this and the Tula service are discussed in Marina Lopato's State Hermitage Museum Catalogue, British Silver, 2015, nos. 55-56. pp. 173-180, Governors’ Services, who writes as follows, “On 30 January 1776 Catherine II gave the order to Olsufyev “Adam Vasilyevich! Order two silver table services from the English, just like those that were bought from there on the occasion of the recent peaceful celebrations (end of Russo-Turkish war)…”

By order of the empress, between April 1776 and May 1777, money was paid out for transfer to England for the last two silver services made there. The services cost a total of 134,893 silver rubles and 88 ½ kopeks, including custom duties.

On 24 September 1777, Ful Privy Counsellor Melgunov was allocated six thousand rubles for setting up the Yarolslavl governorship. Of this service only four items remain in the Hermitage, two salvers and two dishes.