HERMITAGE MUSEUM SAN PETERSBURG: FROM THE DINNER-SERVICE STOREROOMS. DECORATING THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL TABLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH TO EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES

On 7 December 2016, the large-scale exhibition From the Dinner-Service Storerooms. Decorating the Russian Imperial Table in the Eighteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries opens in the Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace.

The exhibition has been organized by the State Hermitage with the participation of the Pavlovsk and Peterhof State Museum Preserves, the State Russian Museum, the Museums of the Moscow Kremlin and the Imperial Porcelain Factory company.

From the Dinner-Service Storerooms is the fifteenth exhibition in the Hermitage’s annual Christmas Present series devoted to the history and art of porcelain. The series is a continuation of a long-ago tradition revived by the Hermitage: back in the eighteenth century the best items produced in the Imperial Porcelain Factory were put on display in the Winter Palace as the Christmas holidays approached.

 The exhibition features over 1,200 items. The main part consists of pieces intended to decorated the imperial tables on formal occasions. Such articles were not generally used in everyday life; they were kept carefully in specially fitted-out repositories – the Dinner-Service Storerooms, which in addition to porcelain services contained tableware made of faience, glass, silver, bronze and other materials, as well as sculptural table ornaments.

A leading place in the exhibition is taken by unique services created at the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg, from the moment when Russia’s first porcelain manufacturer was founded in 1744, in the reign of Empress Elizabeth, up until the time of Nicholas II.

The creation of tableware ensembles was connected with the names and personal tastes of the imperial family and their immediate entourage, outstanding personalities and also notable events and diplomatic gifts. Services were purchased for the needs of the court or received by the rulers as presents. The monograms of the owners and heraldic devices help to establish the details of state and private orders.

The State Hermitage’s collection makes it possible to trace the history of the creation and use of table services; the stylistic evolution of shapes, sculpted and painted decoration; the development and technological advances of the ceramic industry.

 The Winter Palace services section contains Russian porcelain sets made between the second half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. The Private Services of Empress Elizabeth (1750s–60s), the Cabinet (1793–1801) and Yusupov Services from the time of Catherine II and Paul I, the Gothic Service (1832) from the reign of Nicholas I, the Banquet Table and Dessert Service of Grand Duke Alexander Nikolayevich (1841), and Alexandra Feodorovna’s Turquoise Service (1899–1902) created under Nicholas II.

A special place is taken by the famous Russian Order Services, produced by the private Gardner Factory and used at celebrations honouring holders of the Russian Empire’s highest decorations. They include four porcelain sets from the collection of the State Hermitage: the St George (1777–78), St Andrew (1778–80), St Alexander Nevsky (1778–80) and St Vladimir (1783–85) Order Services, each of them decorated with the badge, star and sash of that particular order of chivalry. The porcelain services were used when the cavaliers of the orders were received at the Winter Palace.

The grand services produced at the Imperial Porcelain Factory for special occasions were an important state commission. For the banquets that accompanied the coronation ceremony for a new monarch porcelain decorated with the Russian double-headed eagle was used. The exhibits include the first Coronation Service, that was produced at the St Petersburg factory in 1826 for the celebrations in Moscow that followed Nicholas I’s accession to the throne.

Also on display are Russian sets made for other palaces: the Great Peterhof, Gatchina, Pavlovsk, Ropsha, Krasnoye Selo, Tsarskoye Selo, Mikhailovsky, Anichkov and other services. Striking exhibits in this section are the decorative compositions from the Coat-of-Arms (1827) and Gold (1828) Services with sumptuous sculptural ornaments that come from the Pavlovsk Museum Preserve.

Of fundamental importance for a proper understanding of the subject of the exhibition are four reconstructions of fully laid tables, presenting, in chronological order, items from: the Arabesque Service with sculptural ornaments (1784) from the collection of the State Russian Museum; the Russian (Guryev) Service (1809–16) from the Peterhof State Museum Preserve; the Kremlin Service (1837–38) from the Museums of the Moscow Kremlin; and the Berlin Service (1894), presented by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany for the wedding of Emperor Nicholas II, from the collection of the State Hermitage. The magnificent ensembles allow visitors to compare different methods of laying the table employed at the imperial court: the “French” method from the second half of the eighteenth century and the “Russian” method from the nineteenth century. This is most clearly seen from the outstanding sets of Russian-made porcelain: the Arabesque and Guryev Services. The design of the former is associated with the French sculptor Jacques Dominique Rachette, that of the latter with the outstanding Russian sculptor Stepan Pimenov. Originally these ensembles adorned sumptuous banquets in the Winter Palace. The Kremlin Service was intended for dinner parties given by the Russian rulers in the Great Kremlin Palace in Moscow. It was created at the Imperial Porcelain Factory to the design of the Russian artist and archaeologist Feodor Solntsev, who employed in an effective manner motifs used in the decoration of Early Russian artefacts and the state symbols of imperial Russia. The Berlin Service, made at the Royal Porcelain Factory in the German capital, was the last major set to enter the Dinner-Service Storerooms of the Winter Palace.

Of particular significance in the context of the exhibition are the items of oriental origin and also a number of unique pieces of European ceramic art from the stocks of the State Hermitage. These include some splendid eighteenth-century services: the Viennese Service with coat-of-arms (circa 1730–35), the St Andrew’s Service (1744–45), the Berlin Dessert Service (1770–72), the Green Frog Service (1773–74) featuring architectural views of England and the Service with Cameos (1778–79) that were the first to take up residence in the Dinner-Service Storerooms of the Winter Palace. Shown here too are Russian-made items, the “supplements” that illustrate the practice of making extra items in this country to match outstanding foreign sets. Pieces produced to replace lost ones were made both at the imperial St Petersburg factory and at private manufacturing facilities, including the Kornilov brothers’ works. The Sèvres Service with Cameos is used to demonstrate tableware with “forgotten” shapes and purposes, those elements of grand formal table appointments that appeared in the 1700s but already went out of use in the following century. They include plats-de-menage, bottle holders, monteiths, glaciers and little dessert cups, compotiers, gueridons and more.

The picture presented of imperial dining, which was regarded as a special ceremonial event at the Russian court, is filled out with servants’ liveries, pieces of furniture, tablecloths, napkins and menus. The exhibits include prints, watercolours, books and photographs depicting festive occasions held in the palace.

In the Dinner-Service Storerooms tableware was kept not only as items of practical use, but also as works of art that became increasingly valuable with the passage of time. Revealing too is the continuity between the storerooms of the past and the modern repositories in which exhibits are carefully preserved. The exhibition provides a unique opportunity to discover collections that are housed in the present-day “dinner-service storerooms”, now part of the museum.

The works of artists at today’s Imperial Porcelain Factory are linked to the classic heritage of the art of service ensembles and table ornaments. From the mid-1700s to the present day, the production of tableware has remained a traditional sphere of activity for the factory in St Petersburg. As part of the present project, contemporary artists were invited to exercise their creativity and devise an artistic look for a modern formal dining service. Russian porcelain artists – Galina Belash, Inna Olevskaya, Nelli Petrova, Sergei Rusakov, Anna Trofimova and Tatyana Chapurgina – came up with their own ideas within the thematic context of the exhibition and their works are on display in the Recess of the Eastern Gallery in the Winter Palace. The pieces, each of them a one-off, illustrate the development of the inexhaustible theme of dining services and table ornaments.

For the Christmas exhibition, the Imperial Porcelain Factory has made its traditional gift to the State Hermitage. On this occasion, it is a decorative piece by the artist Anna Trofimova, called, in keeping with the exhibition, The Keepers of the Dinner-Service Storerooms.

The exhibition has been prepared by the State Hermitage’s Department of the History of Russian Culture (headed by Viacheslav Anatolyevich Feodorov) with the participation of other museum departments. The author of the concept, exhibition curator and project coordinator is Irina Radikovna Bagdasarova, Candidate of Art Studies, senior researcher in the Department of the History of Russian Culture.

For the exhibition, the State Hermitage publishing house has produced a scholarly illustrated catalogue: From the Dinner-Service Storerooms. Decorating the Russian Imperial Table in the Eighteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries (2016) and a brochure with the same title.

The catalogue has a foreword by Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage – “Service Storeroom Stories”.

  The catalogue articles are by Irina Bagdasarova, Yan Vilensky, Lidia Liakhova (State Hermitage), Tamara Nosovich (Peterhof), Irina Gorbatova (Museums of the Moscow Kremlin) and Galina Tsvetkova (Imperial Porcelain Factory).

https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/what-s-on/temp_exh/2016/fromservicestorages/?lng=en