A PAIR OF RUSSIAN `ETRUSCANWARE' PARCEL-GILT AND POLYCHROME DECORATED OPALINE VASES

This pair of vases is closely related to a set of four white opaline 'Etruscan' vases made by the Russian Imperial Glass Factory in 1799, and preserved at the Pavlovsk Palace Museum, St. Petersburg; the upper and lower friezes are virtually identical, and the central band of Etruscan figures, undoubtedly derived from d'Hancarville's Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the cabinet of the Hon. W. Hamilton His Britannick Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary ad the Court of Naples, published in 1766-67, are very similar (A. Kuchumov, Russian Decorative Art in the Collection of the Pavlovsk Palace Museum, Leningrad, 1981, no. 108).