The Hermitage guide

The Department owns a large and extremely varied collection of Russian artistic ceramics — about 11,000 items — which shows the development of the ceramic industry in Russia in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The bulk of this collection consists of porcelain. The products of the former Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg (now the Lomonosov Factory) are well represented. Particularly valuable are the specimens dating from the birth of the Russian porcelain industry in the mid-eighteenth century and associated with the name of its founder, Dmitry Vinogradov. These comprise a small cup of 1749, with a vine branch moulded in relief, a painted snuff-box bearing the mark of Vinogradov himself, and also items from Her Majesty’s Private Service (the first large Russian dinner service, made for the Empress Elizabeth) which are decorated with flower garlands moulded by hand.

In the second half of the eighteenth century the factory’s production was extremely varied both in design and decoration, and included dinner services for imperial palaces. The Hermitage collection contains items from some of these services, for example the Arabesque, Cabinet, and Yusupov ones.

Porcelain made in the first quarter of the nineteenth century was of more formal design but lavishly gilded. The Museum possesses only a few items from this period but those few are interesting and rare. Particularly beautiful are the large vases skilfully painted by accomplished artists. Early twentieth-century china is represented by the work of S. Sudbinin, K. Korovin, G. Zimin and others.

The collection also has numerous examples of porcelain manufactured by private factories. These small enterprises, founded at the turn of the nineteenth century, produced goods for the mass market. Almost half of them were situated in the region of Gzhel. The most important were the Francis Gardner and Alexei Popov factories which specialized in the production of small china figures, realistically representing characters from various social classes.

The collection of early Soviet china is very interesting, especially the work of Natalya and Helena Danko, Zinaida Kobyletskaya, and Alexandra Shchekatikhina-Pototskaya, as well as items based on the designs of Sergei Chekhonin.

The Department owns a fine collection of Russian glassware totalling more than 3,000 items. This includes sumptuous large goblets with engraved designs and gilt ornamentation, made in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries at the Izmailovo (near Moscow) and Yamburg factories; articles produced by the St Petersburg Glassworks in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the products of the Maltsev and Alexei Bakhmetyev glassworks; and coloured glass objects which appeared in the mid-eighteenth century after Lomonosov discovered the secret of making smalt.

Gold- and silverwork and jewellery from the late seventeenth to early twentieth centuries are illustrated in the Hermitage by over 11,000 items. The collection contains works crafted by silversmiths in Moscow, St Petersburg, Novgorod, Veliky Ustiug, Kostroma, and Tobolsk. There are articles intended for the court and the nobility, such as ladles and goblets presented as a reward for loyal service, salvers, plates, vases (often made in commemoration of historical events), as well as personal ornaments: finger rings, earrings, and breast chains decorated with river pearls, tourmalines, coloured enamels, and Siberian emeralds. The work of such artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as P. Semionov, A. Grigoryev, I. Liebmann, Yu. Landt, and V. Sorkovanov is well represented.

Foremost among the Hermitage masterpieces of silverwork is the monumental tomb of St Alexander Nevsky, the military leader and statesman of Old Russia. It was made by craftsmen at the St Petersburg Mint in 1747—52 from silver mined in the Altai Mountains, and weighs about 1.5 tons. In addition to the sarcophagus, which is covered with scenes in high relief, showing episodes from the life of St Alexander Nevsky, and has verses by Lomonosov engraved on its surfaces, there are a many-tiered pyramid, two pedestals displaying various articles of military equipment, and a pair of large candelabra. The abundance of decorative detail, and the asymmetrical, highly dynamic composition of this memorial reflect the influence of the Baroque which was dominant in Europe at the time.

The superb craftsmanship of Russian silversmiths is also exemplified by a collection of snuff-boxes, goblets, cups, pitchers, and other items decorated with niello, which were made for the most part in Moscow in the seventeenth century, and in Veliky Ustiug in the eighteenth.