A Russian Faience Platter: "Sadko" with Decoration After Mikhail Vrubel. Marked Kuznetsov Factory with Imperial Wa...

Description

A Russian Faience Platter: "Sadko" with Decoration After Mikhail Vrubel
Marked Kuznetsov Factory with Imperial Warrant in gold, Moscow, circa 1905
24 x 29 x 4 inches (61.0 x 73.7 x 10.2 cm)

PROVENANCE:
Parke Bernet Galleries, New York, Russian Works of Art, March 23, 1971, lot 176;
Private Collection, New York;
A La Vieille Russie, New York, acquired from the above.


While the work of the Kuznetsov Factory was largely accessible to members of the general public, the offered lot, with its gilt imperial eagle and signature indicates that this exceptional platter, executed after a design by Mikhail Vrubel, was an imperial commission. Dr. Tina Khmelnitskaya notes that gilt signatures are exceedingly rare on works by the factory and indicate an imperial provenance.

Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910), one of the important members of the Russian symbolist movement, stood at the intersection of myth, industry, and modern design. His engagement with ceramics began in the early 1890s at the Abramtsevo ceramic workshop near Moscow, founded by the philanthropist Savva Mamontov (1841-1918). Vrubel's experiments in design there soon led him to head the workshop, and during this period, he discovered the visual impacts of reduction glazes, whose iridescent, shifting surfaces would become a hallmark of his designs for ceramics.

Theatrical culture also shaped his artistic vision. Vrubel's wife sang with the Mamontov Opera, and the company's repertoire inspired many of his choices for subjects in majolica sculpture. Music, myth, and material fused perhaps most vividly in his works based on Sadko drawn from Rimsky-Korsakov's opera. A decorative fireplace panel now in the Latvian National Museum of Art embodies this synthesizing spirit of Russia's Silver Age: sculpture, painting, and theater unite in a single object. Its shimmering glazes echo the chromatic intensity of Vrubel's canvases, transforming folklore into a radiant Russian iteration of Art Nouveau.

Although Rimsky-Korsakov's "Sadko" premiered in Moscow on January 7, 1898, at the Solodovnikov Theatre, the official St. Petersburg premiere took place at the Mariinsky Theatre on January 21, 1901. The opera tells the story of Sadko, a gusli player (guslar), who leaves his wife, Lubava, and home in Novgorod and eventually returns a wealthy man. During his wanderings he amasses a fortune, weds the daughter of the Tsar and Tsarina of the Sea and has other adventures. The platter depicts a scene from Act I, scene ii, "Sadko on the Shores of Lake Ilmen" in which Sadko sings by the shores of lake Ilmen near the ancient city of Novgorod, where his voice attracts swans who transform into maidens, one of whom is Volkhova, the Sea Princess, who is determined to marry a mortal. The opera was a sensation, and inspired audiences and artists alike.

When Vrubel collaborated with the Kuznetsov porcelain factory after the 1890s, the Symbolist imagination entered mass production. Kuznetsov, the empire's largest ceramics manufacturer, sought to move towards a "Russian style" that could compete with European Art Nouveau products while affirming a national identity. Again, Vrubel' turned to Sadko, producing a series of gouaches for works to be issued by the Kuznetsov factory in porcelain, or as here, in faience. A number of the sketches and platters survive: one gouache in a private collection in New York (illustrated here) is of the same scene as the offered lot, and another, titled Sadko on the Bank of Lake Ilmen from 1899 in the collection of the State Russian Museum (Inv. no. p-5413). Other platters survive as well, another platter titled Sadko is based on an 1899 design and is attributed to the Abramtsevo ceramics workshop (Inv. no. FS-476).

This offered lot, executed within the Kuznetsov workrooms, showcases more delicate modeling than the Abramtsevo models, but Vrubel's design of stylized sea creatures, heroic figures, iridescent glazes, and crystalline ornaments still turn folklore into a language of form. His design bridges realms-between artisan and industry, elite art and domestic object-much as Sadko bridged land and sea. The Kuznetsov commissions demonstrated that national tradition could inhabit modern commodities, bringing the Symbolist search for the transcendent into the everyday spaces of the middle class.


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