A porcelain cup and saucer


Imperial Porcelain Factory, St. Petersburg, dated 1854the cup depicting children as characters from the commedia dell'arte flanked by trailing floral motifs between gilt strap work bands, with c-scroll handle, the underside with Nicholas I cipher, dated 1854 and inscribed "Planteur et Créole", the saucer enriched en-suite (2) diameter of saucer: 14cm (5 1/2in).
|This example is dated 1854, the year the service was created by Vivant Beaucé, a French born painter at the Imperial Porcelain Factory. For a tête-à-tête service with a covered sugar bowl of the same design preserved at the Peterhof Museum, see T. Kudriavtseva, Russian Imperial Porcelain, St. Petersburg, 2003, pp. 156 and 248. A further cup and saucer from this service is illustrated in von Wolf, (ed. T.N. Nosovich), Imperatorskii farforovyi zavod, 1744-1904, St. Petersburg, 2003, p. 209, pl. 324.