A PAIR OF MONUMENTAL RUSSIAN CUT-CRYSTAL ORMOLU-MOUNTED IMPERIAL VASES, AFTER A DESIGN BY I. A. IVANOV, IMPERIAL GLASS FACTORY, ST. PETERSBURG, 1820S

RELATED LITERATURE
Arcadii Gaidamak, Russian Empire Style: Architecture, Decorative Art and Design of the First Third of the XIX c., (Moscow-Paris: Trefoil Press, 2000), p. 135
Dekorativno-prikladnoe Iskusstvo.(St, Petersburg), 1995, p. 82

LOT NOTES
The pair of monumental cut-crystal vases featured in the present lot was created based on the drawings of Ivan Alekseevich Ivanov (fl. 1815-1848), a leading designer of various large-scale glassworks ornamenting the Russian Imperial palaces. In reference to these vases, the preeminent expert and historian of Russian glass, Tatiana Malinina, writes: these vases [form] a bright and exceptionally rare example of works from the Imperial Glass Factory of the Alexander [I] Empire style epoch. According to the court archives, works of such supreme quality were produced in just a handful of examples, and an identical vase is presently in the collection of the State Historical Museum, Moscow. There is reason to believe, that the style of cut-crystal featured in these pieces was a personal favorite of Emperor Alexander I, and according to documents, the vases were commissioned as a gift for the members of the Russian Imperial Court for the Easter or Christmas holidays.

of baluster form in the Medici style, the central register of the vase body with a cut-crystal pattern in the form of laurel leaves, bracketed by a band of diamond-cut crystal on top and bottom, the lowest register with a wide band in a checkered diamond pattern, the gilded bronze handles in the form of scrolling vegetative volutes, each handle terminating in a satyr mask, the gilded bronze square-stepped base with a palm leaf border, height: 62 cm (24 3/8 in.)

Accompanied by a pair of custom-made Karelian birch cases fitted with locks