Public Lecture: "Russian Imperial Porcelain"

Dr. Kettering will talk about items displayed at the exhibition in the Muscarelle Museum of Art. The exhibit includes many pieces from significant porcelain services made by the Imperial Porcelain Factory, starting from Empress Elizabeth and Catherine the Great to Nicholas and Alexandra. Visitors will see items featured at State Banquets at the Kremlin and other Imperial Palaces , as well as items designed for the Tsar's private use aboard the Imperial Yachts. Among the rare items will be two pieces from a service Catherine the Great ordered for her grandson, Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, as well as pieces from services presented by Augustus III of Saxony and Frederick the Great to the eighteenth century Russian Tsarinas. The exhibit will also feature 200 years of glassware, from a beaker from the time of Peter the Great to glassware for the Imperial Yachts and a vase made by the Imperial Glass Factory that the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna kept on her desk in Denmark after the Russian Revolution. Russian enamels from the late nineteenth century will include a major jewel casket made by the Ovchinnikov firm and presented to Tsar Alexander III's Minister of the Interior, as well as the work of Fedor Ruckert and the workmasters of the Faberge firm.