A Russian faience dinner plate from additions to the Husk Service, Poskochin Factory, circa 1830-1841. Shaped circular, the plate glazed in the cream color typical of Queen’s Ware, the border decorated with husks & garlands in magenta, centered with a magenta blossom, the underside enameled in a rose/pink with a decorative border of husks & garlands surrounding a flower center, the underside with the impressed factory mark of the Cyrillic letters SP. Diameter 9 3/4 in. (24.8 cm).
Empress Catherine II originally ordered the Husk Service from Wedgwood; the commission called for a dinner & dessert service for 24 persons. The pieces were finished at the Etruria manufactory in Burselm between 1769 & 1770 before being painted in London & dispatched to the Russian capital. The service, glazed in the fine cream color known as Queen’s Ware (in honor of Queen Charlotte) was kept in the Winter Palace. An 1819 inventory included 1500 pieces. When additions & replacements were required in the mid-19th century, the manufactory of Sergei Yakovlevich Poskochin, producer of some of the finest, most delicate faience in Russia, was the obvious choice. On the factory & the additions to this service, see Olga Novikova, “Faians zavoda Poskochina,” Antikvariat, predmety iskusstva i kollektsionirovaniia 2008, no. 6 (June), pp. 14-23.