CREAMER FROM A TEA AND COFFEE SERVICE

Creator(s): Gardner Porcelain Manufactory (Manufacturer)

On view in: Second Floor Hallway

About this object

Each of the vessels in this large service is painted with elaborate, continuous landscapes populated for the most part by peasant, including men, women, and children. They are shown engaged in pleasurable leisure activities such as traditional games, but these scenes are interspersed with more serious scenes or vignettes in which members of the nobility or gentry appear. A column serves as a central motif on each piece; on larger pieces it is transformed into a pedestal that supports various classical figures. Attached to each column is the coat of arms of the Princes Kasatkin-Rostovskii. The shield is divided into two parts, with the Archangel Michael on a blue ground on the top and a running deer on the bottom. The whole shield is mounted on an ermine mantle surmounted by a prince's crown. To the right of the central motif of the family arms is vignette in which a seated noblewoman or gentry woman is cutting the hair of serf children. A little blond girl, her head shorn, stands to the right, while a second standing woman gestures toward a small boy waiting for his hair to be cut. The woman with the shears has stopped and looks away. 25.29.7 Hot Water Jug To the left of the central motif is a scene in which a young noblewoman, her face hidden from the viewer, gives alms to an elderly peasant man in torn clothing carrying a walking stick and a torn bag. She wears a purple and blue striped shawl over an Empire-waisted white dress, long gloves, black slippers over white stockings, and her hair has been curled and put up. A shoeless young child in an oversized blue tunic and striped pants stands next to him and looks off into the distance. In the second vignette, a peasant couple can be seen from the back, seated in a wagon as it drives away.

Object name:

CREAMER FROM A TEA AND COFFEE SERVICE

Made from:

Porcelain

Made in:

Verbilki, Russia

Date made:

ca. 1820

Size:

22.9 cm (9 in.)

Detailed information for this item

Catalog number:

25.29.7

Class:

CERAMICS

Signature marks:

MARK GARDNER impressed in paste on underside. COAT OF ARMS [coat of arms of the Princes Kasatkin-Rostovskii]

Credit line:

Bequest of Marjorie Merriweather Post, 1973