Lot 0161
Russian 19th Century Porcelain Ashtray-Hooligan
Estimate: 800-1000€
A Russian porcelain “hooligan” ashtray, made at a private porcelain manufactory in the second half of the 19th century.
This humorous and somewhat risqué piece depicts a young woman who has fallen backward into an oversized pink shell, her legs playfully visible in the air. Such figurines, often called “hooligan” or “frivolous” porcelain, were produced in small workshops for private clients, contrasting sharply with the more formal and academic porcelain of major factories like Gardner or Kuznetsov.
These objects were popular in the late 19th century among collectors and members of the urban bourgeoisie for their satirical, playful, and sometimes erotic themes. Dimensions: 7,5 x 13 x 10 cm.
Starting price: 600€
Estimate: 800-1000€
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Lot 0018
Fedor Kovshenkov. A Rare Russian bust of Emperor Alexander I
Estimate: 2500-3000€
Lot 0018
Fedor Kovshenkov. A Rare Russian bust of Emperor Alexander I
Estimate: 2500-3000€Bust of Emperor Alexander I
Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, 1827
Author: Fedor Ivanovich Kovshenkov (1785–1850)
Bronze, casting, patination
Dimensions: 19.5 x 8.5 x 8.5 cm.This finely executed bust of Emperor Alexander I was created by Fedor Kovshenkov, a master bronzeworker who had once been a serf. In 1822, the Emperor himself recognized Kovshenkov’s talent and freed him from serfdom, appointing him as a bronze master during the construction of the Kazan Cathedral.
In 1826, as an expression of gratitude, Kovshenkov produced his first bust of Alexander I, and he returned to this theme multiple times throughout his career. Several examples in bronze and cast iron are preserved today in the State Russian Museum, alongside his busts of Emperor Nicholas I and Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich. A comparable piece is held in the State Literary-Memorial and Natural Museum-Reserve of Alexander Pushkin “Boldino” in the Nizhny Novgorod region.
Fedor Ivanovich Kovshenkov (1785–1850)
Originally a serf, Kovshenkov’s exceptional skill in bronze chasing brought him to the attention of Emperor Alexander I, who liberated him. He went on to create portrait busts of members of the imperial family and other distinguished figures, establishing his reputation within the St. Petersburg artistic milieu of the first half of the 19th century.Starting price: 2000€
Estimate: 2500-3000€
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Lot 0019
A Russian wood composition ” Cossack on a horse”
Estimate: 500-600€
Lot 0019
A Russian wood composition ” Cossack on a horse”
Estimate: 500-600€Cossack on Horseback
Russia (Danzig [Gdańsk], then part of the Russian Empire), late 19th century
Wood, metal
Dimensions: 21.5 × 16 × 7 cm
Inscribed: “А. Ханыковъ. Данцигъ”A finely carved wooden composition depicting a Cossack horseman, holding a lance and seated on a spirited mount. The sculpture bears a dedication to Alexander Vladimirovich Khanykov (1825–1853) — a noted Russian revolutionary and member of the Petrashevsky Circle, an intellectual and reformist movement in mid-19th century St. Petersburg.
Khanykov, a volunteer student at the St. Petersburg University, was an active participant in the philosophical and political circles of Mikhail Petrashevsky and Nikolai Kashkin. A passionate advocate of Charles Fourier’s socialist ideas, Khanykov delivered a public speech in memory of Fourier on April 7, 1849. That same year, he was arrested in connection with the Petrashevsky case, sentenced to death (later commuted to exile as a private in the Orenburg line battalions).
In exile, Khanykov initiated a secret Russo–Polish–Ukrainian circle, which likely included the poet Taras Shevchenko, also serving in Orenburg. Members of the group held political discussions, wrote satirical pamphlets against the imperial government, and circulated banned literature on economics, geography, and history. Khanykov also compiled a clandestine manuscript on world history praising popular sovereignty and the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789 and 1848, expressing sympathy for Christian socialism.
This wooden sculpture — created in Danzig (now Gdańsk) — appears to be a commemorative or symbolic representation of Khanykov’s revolutionary courage and his association with the frontier and Cossack imagery.
Starting price: 400€
Estimate: 500-600€
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Lot 0012
Le Devoir’ by Emile Louis Picault (1833-1915)
Estimate: 5000-6000€
Lot 0012
Le Devoir’ by Emile Louis Picault (1833-1915)
Estimate: 5000-6000€Émile Louis Picault (1833–1915)
Le Devoir (Duty)
France, late 19th century
Patinated bronze, signed “E. Picault” on base, with stamp “Réduction Mécanique A. Collas”
Height: 77 cm
This finely cast bronze by Émile Louis Picault represents Le Devoir — “Duty” — a classical warrior symbolizing civic virtue, courage, and moral steadfastness. The figure stands poised, holding a sword, embodying the ideals of honor and devotion to one’s homeland. The work’s dynamic realism and noble restraint exemplify the heroic allegorical style that made Picault one of the most admired sculptors of the French Third Republic.Cast with Picault’s characteristic attention to anatomy and drapery, the sculpture bears the mechanical reduction stamp of A. Collas, referring to Achille Collas’s innovative 19th-century process for creating precise scaled reductions of large bronzes.
Émile Louis Picault trained under the Dutch sculptor Louis Royer and exhibited extensively at the Paris Salon between 1863 and 1909. His works often depicted allegorical, patriotic, and mythological subjects — celebrating labor, honor, knowledge, and heroism.
Starting price: 4000€
Estimate: 5000-6000€
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Lot 0013
Evgeny Lanceray. A Russian bronze composition “Little Kyrgyz or Bashkir the herdsman”
Estimate: 2000-3000€
Lot 0013
Evgeny Lanceray. A Russian bronze composition “Little Kyrgyz or Bashkir the herdsman”
Estimate: 2000-3000€Evgeny Lanceray. Little Kyrgyz (or Bashkir Herdsman)
Model 1879
Bronze. Dimensions: 19 × 23 × 10 cm
St. Petersburg, late 19th centuryThis bronze composition by Evgeny Lanceray represents a mounted Bashkir herdsman, shown in dynamic motion, holding a lasso in his hand. The work belongs to Lanceray’s celebrated ethnographic series, inspired by his extensive travels across Russia and its borderlands.
The model was created in 1879 but reflects impressions from an earlier journey to Bashkiria in the early 1870s. Like many of Lanceray’s works, The Bashkir Herdsman combines vivid ethnographic detail with the sculptor’s gift for narrative and movement, making it one of his best-known works of small-scale realist sculpture.
During the sculptor’s lifetime and in the late 19th century, the composition was cast at the Chopin and Shtange foundries in St. Petersburg. In the early 20th century, it was also reproduced without foundry marks, both by large firms such as the Moscow workshop of A. M. Postnikov and by smaller private foundries in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Starting price: 1500€
Estimate: 2000-3000€