Throughout the reign of Alexander I (1801-1825), the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty, which provided the subsidies that kept the Imperial Porcelain Factory operating, was headed by Count Dmitry Guryev. In his very first year in office he set about reorganizing the business. To raise technical standards Franz Hattenberger, professor of technology at Geneva University, was invited to Russia. (In 1803 he became director of the factory.) In order to improve production methods Guryev recruited three master craftsmen from the Berlin Royal Factory - the arcanist (paste-maker) Schulz, the mechanic Schreiber and the firing specialist Seiffert. At this same time the prominent sculptor of the day Stepan Pimenov, an associate professor at the Academy of Arts, was invited to the factory. The artists Henri Adam, Denis Moreau, Jacques-Francois Swebach and the turner Ferdinand Davignon came from the Sèvres Factory.
In the first quarter of the 19th century Russian Classicism flourished in the arts, in the form of the Empire style. The factory’s most significant product of this period was the Guryev Service, named after Count Guryev.
The formal table service for 50 people that Guryev commissioned for Alexander I was intended for the Winter Palace and was kept in the rooms of the Emperor’s wife, Elizabeth Alexeyevna. The designs for the service were the work of Stepan Pimenov. Its chief adornment is sculptural groups of peasant girls and youths elegantly holding vases, bowls and baskets above their heads. The general colour scheme of the ensemble - red-brown combined with gold - is grand. The service is decorated with views of Moscow and St Petersburg, Peterhof and Gatchina, produced from paintings and engravings by Semion Shchedrin, Fedor Alexeyev, Andrei Ukhtomsky and Stepan Galaktionov, as well as scenes from Russian peasant life.
For almost 100 years the Imperial Porcelain Factory adhered to the principle proclaimed by Empress Elizabeth - to make porcelain "from Russian earth". Under Nicholas I (1825-1855) that principle was breached, as imported Limoges clay began to be added to the paste. This period saw the discovery of a special method of gilding porcelain aAnd the pieces that have come down to us from Nicholas I’s reign are marked by a superb aAppearance, the gentle polish, the gleam and toughness of the gilding. Besides gold, patina was used in the technique of ornamental painting.
The Emperor took upon himself the general artistic direction of the factory and approved the designs for its products. These included the classic palace Coat-of-Arms, Gold and Babyegon services (comprising thousands of pieces), and others that skilfully imitated the styles of the past - the Etruscan and Gothic services. Interest in early Russian art prompted the creation of articles from the drawings of the prominent archaeologist Fiodor Solntsev. The inspiration for his decoration of the Kremlin coronation service came from the pattern on an enamelled plate that belonged to Natalia Naryshkina, the Mother of Peter The Great.
The virtuosity of the factory’s craftsmen reached such a peak that they had no trouble copying an oOriginal perfume flask from the Famous Chelsea Factory (1740-64, London, England), enlarging it to the size of a big vase or decorating pieces in imitation of bronze, jasper, malachite or coral. To meet orders from the Imperial Court, even furniture was produced with porcelain insets. The factory’s highest technical achievement in the 1840s was the porcelain flowers moulded by Petr Ivanov. Assembled in a magnificent bouquet and placed on a pale blue plaque, they reproduce with astonishing precision all the visible botanical features of the blooms.
In the 1830s and 1840s extremely skilled painters worked at the factory: The landscapists Vasily Stoletov and N. Kornilov; the historical painters Vasily Meshcheriakov and Semion Golov and the specialist in floral compositions Alexander Tychagin. To record various views artists made journeys to Finland, Siberia and elsewhere. The flowers were painted from life in the Botanical Garden or the factory’s own hothouse. For many years artists copied onto porcelain works from the Hermitage Picture Gallery by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian and Rembrandt, achieving amazing resemblance to the tones of the originals. The achievements of the Imperial Porcelain Factory were marked by a gold medal at the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851.
