A very rare Russian porcelain dessert plate from the Alexandrinsky Turquoise Service, Imperial Porcelain Manufactory, Saint Petersburg, 1902. The cavetto painted with a scene of two romancing putto playing with a rose garland on a bed of clouds, the turquoise blue ground border relieved by three cartouches with ornithological images, the ground with gilt oak leaf garlands. Diameter: 9 7/8“ (25.1 cm).
The Alexandrinsky (or Alexandrinskii) Turquoise Service was commissioned by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna in 1899 for use in the Winter Palace. The service, which came to be called in honor of the Empress, comprised almost 1,300 pieces & was based on a original service by Sèvres in the palace stores. On this service, see N.B. von Wolf (ed. T.N. Nosovich), Imperatorskii farforovyi zavod, 1744-1904, St. Petersburg, 2003, pp. 314-316 & Anne Odom, Russian Porcelain at Hillwood (Washington, DC, 1999), pp. 98-101. For the original French service with ornithological miniatures made at Sèvres between 1783 & 1784, see Tamara Kudriavtseva, Russian Imperial Porcelain(St. Petersburg: Slavia, 2003), p. 208.