Applied Art

Samovar

The samovar (Russian: boils itself ) is a round metal urn used in Russia for making tea. It is filled with water, which is heated by charcoal placed in a pipe. The first samovars appeared in Siberia ...

Toby Jug

Toby jugs were English beer mugs in the form of standing or sitting Englishmen. They were first manufactured in Staffordshire in the 1760s. Toby jugs were extremely popular in Russia and produced in ...

Moscow Service

In the 1780s, Catherine the Great commissioned a large service from the Gardner Factory for the new palace built by Charles Cameron in Pavlovsk. The service was called the “Moscow Service” (because t...

Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna Service (1795–97)

The Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna Service was manufactured between 1795 and 1797 for the marriage of the eldest daughter of Paul I to Archduke Joseph Anton of Austria in 1799. Designed in the Neoc...

Military Plates Service

The first decorative plates depicting Russian regiments were manufactured at the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg in the early 1820s. Several series of plates dedicated to such military ca...

Guriev Service

The Guriev Service was created at the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg between 1809 and 1816. The project was headed by local sculptor Stepan Pimenov. The first official state service crea...

Carved Icon

Carved icons were popular in north Russia and Nizhny Novgorod Province in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were erected on wooden posts in Old Believer settlements or next to the graves ...

Sarafan

Russian female attire was based on the sarafan, which was a kind of sleeveless dress. The whole ensemble comprised a blouse, pinafore, belt and apron and became widespread in Russia at the turn of th...

Double-Sided Procession Icon

Double-sided procession icons were traditionally placed alongside the communion table in the altar – the holy of holies in the Russian Orthodox church. The special place allotted to double-sided icon...

Tray

The boom in hotel and inn construction increased the demand for trays in the nineteenth century. Trays were used to both carry objects and decorate interiors. A series of workshops in St Petersburg a...

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