File:A porcelain plate from a military service, Imperial Porcelain Manufactury,1829 (Officier Supérieur et Subalterne du Régt. des Hussards de la Garde).jpg

English: A Russian Porcelain Plate from a Military Service, Imperial Porcelain Manufactory, St. Petersburg, Period of Nicholas I (1825-1855), dated 1829

the reverse titled Officier Supérieur et Subalterne du Régt. des Hussards de la Garde,

dated 1829, and signed by the painter V. Semenov; also with blue Imperial cypher of Nicholas I

Por celain; diameter 9 3/8 in.; 24 cm

the cavetto painted with a scene of an officer of the Imperial Life Guards' Hussar regiment seated on a rearing white horse, another officer and a senior officer stand to his right and other members of the regiment are visible in a clearing in the background; the border in tooled matte and burnished gold double-headed eagles in the form of the State coat-of-arms during the reign of Nicholas I alternating with military trophies comprising an officers' regimental shako with crossed saber and trumpet set against a branch of laurel.

Nicholas I was one of the greatest patrons of the arts among nineteenth-century monarchs and his personal support of the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory led to extraordinary developments in the factory's production. A new, expanded palette, which included lead-based fluxes and oxide tints, allowed for a subtlety of expression that truly rivaled oils on canvas. As a patriot and an art collector, Nicholas had a particular passion for battle paintings and military scenes and in 1827 he commissioned a large series of military plates (voennye tarelki) that were finished between 1828 and 1836. The Emperor particularly valued accuracy and detail and the newly developed color range allowed the factory's painters to render the tiniest details with precision. This view of a group of officers from Life Guard Hussars Regiments must have been among Nicholas' favorites. Based on a lithograph by Lev Alexandrovich Belousov (1806-1854) after an original drawing by Alexander Sauerweid (1783-1844), one of Nicholas' favorite artists and his first drawing instructor, it was copied not only onto a plate, but also onto the front of a magnificent palace vase dated 1830 now in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum. Although the print was eventually published in the album The Imperial Russian Guards, 1832-1844 (Imperatorskaia Rossiiskaia Gvardiia, 1832-1844), the early date of both this plate and the vase suggests that the factory painters had access to Sauerweid's original drawing. For the vase and Belousov's print after Sauerweid's drawing, see Geraldika na russkom farfore, 2008, pp. 92-93, cat. 20 and p. 251, cat. 117.