Live Auction 15500Important Russian Art
A PORCELAIN FIGURE 'BOURGEOIS SELLING HER WARES AT A MARKET’
Lot 353 PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE SCANDINAVIAN COLLECTION

A PORCELAIN FIGURE 'BOURGEOIS SELLING HER WARES AT A MARKET’

BY THE STATE PORCELAIN FACTORY, PETROGRAD, 1923

Closed26 November 2018

Price Realised

GBP 62,500

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A PORCELAIN FIGURE 'BOURGEOIS SELLING HER WARES AT A MARKET’
BY THE STATE PORCELAIN FACTORY, PETROGRAD, 1923
After the model by Alisa Brusketti-Mitrokhina, realistically modelled and painted as a standing woman, wearing a purple coat, white dress, hat and veil, holding a shawl and a petticoat, with a teddy bear by her feet, on a shaped base dated '1919' and decorated with stylised images of books and shoes, marked under base with green underglaze factory mark, black overglaze Jubilee mark for the fifth anniversary of the State Porcelain Factory, also numbered '94/33', and incised with Cyrillic initials 'IK' for Ivan Kuznetsov
11 3/8 in. (29 cm.) high

Mikhail Alexeyevich Sergeev (1888-1965), scientist and economist, one of the first commissars of the State Bank of the USSR.
Acquired from the estate of the above by the parents of the present owner in the 1960s.

Specialist note

Alisa Brusketti-Mitrokhina (1872-1942) created the model of the ‘Bourgeois Selling Her Wares At a Market’ in 1918, reflecting the social changes in life of the Russian nobility after the Revolution of 1917. The model became extremely popular in Russia as well as abroad, and additional figurines were produced over the next few years. The present lot has a Jubilee mark of 1923, but is dated ‘1919’ in the foreground as a reference to the historical past.

The woman is a representative of the Russian aristocracy, forced to sell her fine possessions in order to meet her basic needs after the Revolution. Her face is veiled, suggesting her diminished position in society. Her appearance provides a strong visual image of the changes brought about by the new Soviet regime.

A comparable figurine dated circa 1925 was sold Sotheby's, London, 3 June 2014, lot 534. For other comparable models, see E. Sametskaya, Sovetskii Agitatsionyi Farfor, Moscow, 2004, p. 84, no. 1 [1], and N. Lobanov-Rostovsky, Revolutionary Ceramics Soviet Porcelain 1917-1927, London, 1990, p. 92, no. 86.