A Porcelain Figure of an Ainu Woman

Beginning in the late 18th century, the Imperial Porcelain Factory produced several series of figures depicting the peoples of the Russian empire in their native costume. The present lot belongs to the last such series, begun in 1907 by the sculptor Pavel Kamenskii (1858-1923). Working from models in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography and the Department of Ethnography of the Russian Museum, Kamenskii strove to depict his subjects with the utmost accuracy. The present lot portrays a woman of the Ainu people, who inhabited Sakhalin and the Kurile islands. For another example of this model, see T. Nosovich and N. Popova, The State Porcelain Factory 1904-1944, St. Petersburg, 2005, p. 138, illustrated.