A rare Russian porcelain cup & saucerfrom the Raphael Service, Imperial Porcelain Factory, ST Petersburg, 1893 & 1901. Both of typical shape, the cup centered with a battle of sea gods en grisaille against an iron red ground within a shaped cartouche with gilded border with mastic decoration reserved against a band of cream with foliate trophies & grotesques relieved by scenes of classical goddesses against celadon green grounds, the underside of the cup with gilt Slavonic Imperial cipher of Alexander III dated 1893 painted over a green factory mark; the saucer with panels of foliate trophies & grotesques in celadon, cream, & iron red within gilt borders, the underside with gilt Slavonic cipher of Nicholas II dated 1901. Height of cup: 2 5/8 in. (6.8 cm); Diameter of saucer:6 1/2 in. (16.5 cm).

Emperor Alexander III specially commissioned the Raphael Service in honor of the 400th anniversary of the Italian painter Raphael Sanzio da Urbino (1483-1520) in 1883. Intended for use in Great Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, the Raphael service was perhaps the most important service produced at the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory in the late 19th & early 20th centuries. The ornament is derived from motifs in the Hermitage’s Raphael Loggia, which had been copied for Catherine II after frescoes by Raphael & his students in the loggias of the Vatican. The service’s primary decoration alternates panels with human & animal figures interwoven with scrolls & foliage & medallions with antique figures en grisaille set against gray, celadon, iron red, or light blue backgrounds. The project was so complex that Leonard Leonardovich Schaufelberger (1839-1894), head of the factory’s painting workshop, oversaw the designs, & Emperor Alexander III personally approved most of them. Pieces from it are uniquely marked with large, stenciled ciphers of the ruling monarch in tooled gold Slavonic script. The ornately painted service was completed in 1903 after twenty years’ work & included only fifty place settings. The following year, the service was moved to the Anichkov Palace in St. Petersburg for use by the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. On the service & its history, see T.V. Petrova’s note in Pod tsarskim venzelem, St. Petersburg, 2007, pp. 200-201.