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November 24,
2003 |
For Immediate Release |
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Washington, D.C. – Hillwood Museum & Gardens is pleased to announce two important loans of objects that notably complement the museum’s world-renowned collection of Russian decorative arts: a rare embroidered icon produced around 1660 and 150 pieces of porcelain from the collection of Raymond F. Piper. A Rare Embroidered Icon A rare embroidered icon is now on view in the Russian Liturgical Gallery through December 31, 2003. It will again be on display in Hillwood’s upcoming temporary exhibition, Tradition in Transition: Russian Icons in the Age of the Romanovs, June 1 through December 31, 2004. The icon was produced around 1660 in a workshop belonging to Anna Ivanovna Stroganov, a member of one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Russia. The icon’s attribution was confirmed after a private collector contacted Hillwood curator Karen L. Kettering, Ph.D., while in search of information concerning an embroidery that he had inherited. Prior to this icon coming to light, only 175 pieces from the Stroganov workshops were known to exist. The majority of these objects are in public museums in the Russian cities of Solvychegodsk and Perm. The Stroganov embroidery identified by Kettering is the first discovered outside Russia. The icon depicts the Lamentation, with Mary, Mary Magdalene, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and others standing over the body of Christ after his crucifixion. Each patterned or textured surface is achieved through the use of different types of stitches. Such an image would have taken one to two years to complete. The Stroganov workshop in which this item was made is considered to have been one of the most important in seventeenth-century Russia. Located in Solvychegodsk, almost 500 miles north of Moscow, it is known to have produced works of unparalleled excellence. That high quality is particularly apparent in the figures mourning over the body of Christ. Based on the icon’s shape, size, and image of the Lamentation, it is believed that this rare discovery was originally a winding cloth (Rus. plashchanitsa), a special type of icon venerated on Good Friday during Easter services, or an aer (Rus. vozdukh), a veil used to cover the unconsecrated bread during the Liturgy. This icon would originally have included fabric surrounding the image to identify its purpose. This fabric has been removed, but Kettering continues to research the function of the piece. Embroidered icon Piper Collection Hillwood Museum & Gardens has successfully negotiated a five-year loan of more than 150 pieces of Russian porcelain from the collection of Raymond F. Piper of Plymouth, Wisconsin. Most of the pieces in the Piper collection were produced in the Imperial Porcelain Factory, which operated in St. Petersburg from 1744 to 1917. Mr. Piper, a retired English teacher, initially collected silver and European porcelain and first became interested in Russian porcelain after a trip to the Soviet Union in 1975. His research has kept him in contact since the 1970s with Hillwood’s curators, including curator emerita Anne Odom, who negotiated the loan. Select objects from the collection went on view in September. The Piper collection beautifully complements Hillwood’s extensive holdings of Russian porcelain, which include twenty-two pieces of the famous Orlov Service. A Piper bowl from this service is on display in the Mansion. Catherine the Great presented this toilet and tea service to her favorite, Grigorii Orlov, probably between 1762 and 1765. The Piper bowl, unlike other pieces from the service held by Hillwood, is painted with a polychrome military scene, likely a battle from the Seven Years War, which ended in 1763. A number of Piper’s objects from the reign of Nicholas II are featured in the Visitors Center. They include one of four vases in his collection with underglaze painting, a Chinese technique revived in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century. The body of this vase, created in 1902, has a monochrome underglaze and is decorated with a mythological figure in pâte-sur-pâte. This latter technique involves creating a relief by layering coats of slip clay, one on top of another. Hillwood is particularly pleased to display this vase, as it has no examples of this type of decoration in the museum’s rich collection of vases from the mid-nineteenth century. Another important piece on view is Lady with a Mask, a figure designed and first modeled in 1906 by World of Art artist Konstantin Somov (1869–1939). Somov is famous for his paintings of eighteenth-century women, like that depicted in this porcelain object. The Imperial Porcelain Factory produced this figure around 1910. Pieces from the Piper collection have been exhibited in several museums, including the Edsell and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe, Michigan; the Lowe Art Museum of the University of Miami; and the Payne Art Center in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Bowl Hillwood Museum & Gardens was the Washington residence of Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887–1973), cereal heiress and art collector, from 1955–1973. Mrs. Post assembled the most comprehensive collection of Russian imperial art outside of Russia and a world-renowned collection of eighteenth-century French decorative arts. Among the notable items are imperial Fabergé eggs, chalices, icons, and liturgical vestments from imperial Russia, Beauvais tapestries, and Sèvres porcelain. Hillwood is set upon twenty-five acres, twelve of which are enchanting formal gardens, including a Japanese-style garden and a French parterre. Hillwood opened to the public in 1977.
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