O.V. MOROZOVA, A.A. SOLIN
The collection of precious metal objects at the Department of the History of Russian Culture is based on the items transferred to the Hermitage in 1941 from the State Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR. Before that, they had belonged to the Department of History and Everyday Life at the State Russian Museum, created in 1918 on the basis of nationalized private collections of the Shuvalovs, Sheremetevs, Bobrinskys, Yusupovs and Stroganovs. Some precious objects came from the diamond and silver chests of the Winter Palace and the core collection of the Hermitage.
The collection contains items made by Russians and foreigners working in Russia, among them products of famous firms and masters: church utensils and jewellery, ladles, trays, salt cellars, plates and tableware.
A unique set of 17th-early 18th century silver objects from Solvychegodsk and Great Ustug contains icon settings, stoops and inkstands decorated with Champleve enamels, as well as cups, flagons, incense holders and boxes of painted enamel. Especially valuable are the colourful miniatures and floral designs reminiscent of manuscript illuminations of the period.
Among the blackened silver works by Ustug masters are tobacco boxes, salt cellars, goblets and silverware. The Tobolsk masters produced an exquisite silver service as a present to the Governor of Tobolsk, D.I. Chicherin (1774-1775).
Traditional Russian ladles and grace cups (bratinas), which can be seen among the exhibits, gave way to new designs of goblets and other vessels in the 17th century. The development of textured forms received a lot of attention, as demonstrated in the table decoration or plat de menage (1730s) with its sumptuous Baroque design and monogram of Empress Anna. Cups of the second half of the 18th century are especially expressive in their decor and exquisite finish.
The art of early and high Neoclassicism (18th - early 19th cc.) is represented by products designed by P.M. Tenner from St Petersburg (a soup plate) and P. Grigoryev from Moscow (a jug).
Typical for the art of the 1840s are the products of the Sazikov enterprise with their complex forms and decorative finishing. In the second half of the 19th century, coloured enamels became popular as elements of all types of silver objects - from small-scale jewellery to large icon settings. A good example of this vogue is the setting for the icon of St Alexander Nevsky with the Venerable Titus and Polycarp, made by the enterprise of P.A. Ovchinnikov in 1879 as a memory of Alexander II's miraculous escape from assassination (the icon is in the Great Chapel of the Winter Palace).
The period between the late 1890s and the 1910s is represented by the products of the famous Faberge firm. These were made by highly skilled jewellers such as M. Perkhin, H. Vigstroem and A. Nevalainen and are exquisite in shape and original in design. They are decorated with coloured transparent enamels.
