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Russian Imperial Porcelain Factory oxblood Easter egg

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SKU: 1404-023 Category:

Description

A Russian porcelain presentation Easter egg, Imperial Porcelain Factory, after 1890. The porcelain Easter egg with an oxblood glaze that developed tones of blue & green during firing. Height: 3 1/2 in. (8.8 cm).

Oxblood glazes have their roots in lang-yao, a red glaze developed in Imperial China during the Ming Dynasty. When the first examples were imported to Europe, the intense red color was described as resembling crushed strawberries or the floor of a slaughterhouse & the rather gruesome name oxblood (sang de boeuf or бычья кровь) was adopted. European potters & chemists struggled to duplicate the glaze. Théodore Deck produced a version of it at Sèvres in the 1880s with great difficulty. The red color was a natural for decorating Easter eggs & by 1889 the Russian glaze experts had worked out their own version. One chemist sought to find a deep red glaze without the spots or stripes caused by the inclusion of copper compounds, but many in the period preferred the random colors & patterns that developed in the red & crystalline glazes. Both formulas were retained in the factory’s repertoire up until the end of the Romanov dynasty.

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