A PARCEL-GILT SILVER BRATINA

A similar seventeenth-century bratina, also inscribed ‘Bratina of the Troitse Sergiev Monastery’ is held in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 53.1041 (A. Odom, Russian Silver in America: Surviving the Melting Pot, London, 2011, pp. 40-41, 216). Another similar, slightly larger bratina was sold Christie’s, London, 2 June 2014, lot 373.

In the seventeenth century, Peter I twice sought shelter within the walls of the Troitse Sergiev Monastery. The monastery remains the most important in Russia and is regarded as the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church.