Lot 0076
Imperial Glass Manufactory Glass Beaker with the Scene “Dance before the Sultan”, Lithographic Workshop of Terebenev, St Petersburg, 1840s–1850s
Estimate: 5000-7000€
Imperial Glass Manufactory. Glass Beaker with the Scene “Dance before the Sultan”
Lithographic Workshop of Terebenev. St Petersburg, 1840s-1850s.
Amethyst glass, transfer-printed decoration, gilding.
Dimensions: 7.5 x 6.8 x 6.8 cm.
A rare amethyst glass beaker decorated with a figural literary scene known as “Dance before the Sultan,” illustrating an episode from Byron’s Don Juan. The cylindrical body is enriched on one side with a transfer-printed composition showing an orientalist feast scene with seated and standing figures in theatrical costume, while the reverse is adorned with a gilt floral spray scattered across the deep violet ground.
The decoration was executed in the technique of decalcomania, or transfer printing, introduced into Russian glassmaking in the 1830s and 1840s. In this process, a lithographed image printed in silicate pigments was first transferred onto paper, then applied to the glass surface and fired, so that the paper burned away and the image remained permanently fixed. This method made it possible to reproduce complex figural and narrative compositions with a degree of precision previously difficult to achieve in glass decoration.
The beaker is associated with the lithographic workshop of K. I. Terebenev and P. P. Semechkin, whose work played an important role in the development of printed decoration on Russian porcelain, faience, and glass. Their workshop specialized in combining lithographed imagery with painted gilding and ornamental embellishment, drawing on literary, allegorical, landscape, and historical subjects, as well as reproductions after European masters. Contemporary critics valued the technique for both its artistic refinement and its capacity to bring complex pictorial sources into the sphere of decorative art.
A comparable example is published in O. M. Polyashova, Russian Glass of the 18th to Early 20th Century, p. 161.
Starting price: 4000€
Estimate: 5000-7000€
Hammer Price: €
Related Lots
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Lot 0075
Imperial Glass Manufactory Beaker “Dance before the Sultan”, St Petersburg, 1840s–1850s
Estimate: 5000-7000€
Lot 0075
Imperial Glass Manufactory Beaker “Dance before the Sultan”, St Petersburg, 1840s–1850s
Estimate: 5000-7000€Imperial Glass Manufactory. Glass Beaker with the Scene “Dance before the Sultan”
Lithographic Workshop of Terebenev. St Petersburg, 1840s-1850s.
Amethyst glass, transfer-printed decoration, gilding.
Dimensions: 7.5 x 6.8 x 6.8 cm.
A rare amethyst glass beaker decorated with a figural literary scene known as “Dance before the Sultan,” illustrating an episode from Byron’s Don Juan. The cylindrical body is enriched on one side with a transfer-printed composition showing an orientalist feast scene with seated and standing figures in theatrical costume, while the reverse is adorned with a gilt floral spray scattered across the deep violet ground.
The decoration was executed in the technique of decalcomania, or transfer printing, introduced into Russian glassmaking in the 1830s and 1840s. In this process, a lithographed image printed in silicate pigments was first transferred onto paper, then applied to the glass surface and fired, so that the paper burned away and the image remained permanently fixed. This method made it possible to reproduce complex figural and narrative compositions with a degree of precision previously difficult to achieve in glass decoration.
The beaker is associated with the lithographic workshop of K. I. Terebenev and P. P. Semechkin, whose work played an important role in the development of printed decoration on Russian porcelain, faience, and glass. Their workshop specialized in combining lithographed imagery with painted gilding and ornamental embellishment, drawing on literary, allegorical, landscape, and historical subjects, as well as reproductions after European masters. Contemporary critics valued the technique for both its artistic refinement and its capacity to bring complex pictorial sources into the sphere of decorative art.
A comparable example is published in O. M. Polyashova, Russian Glass of the 18th to Early 20th Century, p. 161.Starting price: 4000€
Estimate: 5000-7000€
Hammer Price: € -
Lot 0078
Russian Imperial Glasswork Glass Beaker with the Scene “Dance before the Sultan”, Lithographic Workshop of Terebenev, St Petersburg, 1840s–1850s
Estimate: 4000-5000€
Lot 0078
Russian Imperial Glasswork Glass Beaker with the Scene “Dance before the Sultan”, Lithographic Workshop of Terebenev, St Petersburg, 1840s–1850s
Estimate: 4000-5000€Russian Imperial Glasswork. Glass Beaker with the Scene “Dance before the Sultan”
Lithographic Workshop of Terebenev. St Petersburg, 1840s-1850s.
Cobalt-blue glass with gilt rim and lithographed decoration over glaze, gilding.
Dimensions: 8,2 x 7,2 x 7,2 cm
A cobalt-blue glass beaker decorated with a figural literary scene known as “Dance before the Sultan,” illustrating an episode from Byron’s Don Juan. The cylindrical body is enriched on one side with a transfer-printed composition showing an orientalist feast scene with seated and standing figures in theatrical costume.
The decoration was executed in the technique of decalcomania, or transfer printing, introduced into Russian glassmaking in the 1830s and 1840s. In this process, a lithographed image printed in silicate pigments was first transferred onto paper, then applied to the glass surface and fired, so that the paper burned away and the image remained permanently fixed. This method made it possible to reproduce complex figural and narrative compositions with a degree of precision previously difficult to achieve in glass decoration.
The beaker is associated with the lithographic workshop of K. I. Terebenev and P. P. Semechkin, whose work played an important role in the development of printed decoration on Russian porcelain, faience, and glass. Their workshop specialized in combining lithographed imagery with painted gilding and ornamental embellishment, drawing on literary, allegorical, landscape, and historical subjects, as well as reproductions after European masters. Contemporary critics valued the technique for both its artistic refinement and its capacity to bring complex pictorial sources into the sphere of decorative art.
A comparable example is published in O. M. Polyashova, Russian Glass of the 18th to Early 20th Century, p. 161.Starting price: 3500€
Estimate: 4000-5000€
Hammer Price: € -
Lot 0077
Russian Imperial Glasswork Glass with a Portrait of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Workshop of P. P. Semechkin and K. I. Terebenev, Petersburg, 1840s
Estimate: 5500-6500€
Lot 0077
Russian Imperial Glasswork Glass with a Portrait of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Workshop of P. P. Semechkin and K. I. Terebenev, Petersburg, 1840s
Estimate: 5500-6500€Russian Imperial Glasswork. Glass with a Portrait of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna
Imperial glass manufactory. Glass decorated with a portrait of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna . Workshop of P. P. Semechkin and K. I. Terebenev. Petersburg, 1840s
Transparent glass with transfer-printed decoration and gilding.
Dimensions: 7.7 x 6 cm.The glass is adorned with a well-known printed image of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, after the painted original by artist P. I. Razumihin (1812–1848), from the collection of the State Historical Museum. The portrait is framed by a wreath of oak and laurel leaves. Below is the double-headed eagle with scepter and orb; above the garland rises the imperial crown. Oak branches extend to the sides, flanked by four banners on either side of the wreath.
This work exemplifies the lithographic decoration developed by the Terebenev and Semechkin workshop, which specialized in applying portraits of members of the Imperial family to glass, porcelain, and faience objects in combination with gilded ornamentation.Starting price: 5000€
Estimate: 5500-6500€
Hammer Price: € -
Lot 0074
Rare Russian Cameo Glass Vase “Forest Landscape”, Imperial Glass Manufactory, St Petersburg, 1915
Estimate: 17000-22000€
Lot 0074
Rare Russian Cameo Glass Vase “Forest Landscape”, Imperial Glass Manufactory, St Petersburg, 1915
Estimate: 17000-22000€A Rare Russian Cameo Glass Vase “Forest Landscape”
Imperial Glass Manufactory, St Petersburg, 1915
Multi-layer glass, acid-etched, carved.
Height: 23 cm. Diameter: 27 cm.
Marked on the underside NII in cyrillic and dated 1915,
A substantial spherical vase on a low spreading foot, conceived as a continuous forest panorama. The body is worked in layered glass of warm amber and reddish-brown tones, over which a dark silhouetted landscape has been etched: serrated fir trees, overhanging pine branches, boulders, reeds, and gently rippling water.
The piece belongs to the artistic vocabulary of Russian Art Nouveau, where glass became a medium of exceptional atmospheric power. Its decorative program is built not on isolated ornament, but on an immersive landscape image unfolding around the entire circumference of the vessel. This continuous treatment of surface, together with the nuanced play of translucency and matte engraving, gives the vase a distinctly painterly character. In the production of the Imperial Glass Manufactory, landscape motifs are comparatively uncommon, which makes this example especially noteworthy.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Art Nouveau glass drew on a wide range of sources, from medieval and classical art to folk traditions, but was especially shaped by the growing fascination with the Far East after the Paris World Exhibition, where Japanese decorative art had a profound impact. This influence encouraged an associative, image-based approach to design, in which color and ornament carried symbolic and emotional meaning.
Glass proved an ideal medium for Art Nouveau because of its rich chromatic range, luminosity, translucency, and painterly effects. These qualities gave works an organic, impressionistic expressiveness and made multi-layered cameo glass one of the most powerful vehicles of the new style in Europe and Russia alike.
The Imperial Glass Manufactory produced a remarkably varied range of Art Nouveau objects, characterized by flowing forms, curved ornament, and motifs drawn from nature. Landscape subjects, however, remained extremely rare and are known mainly from the first decade of the 20th century.Starting price: 15000€
Estimate: 17000-22000€
Hammer Price: €