What statuettes are sold at the price of an apartment, or How much is Soviet porcelain at foreign auctions

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The love for porcelain was inherited by the Soviet inhabitants "by inheritance" from the old-regime fashion. The young Soviet state quickly enough transferred this hobby onto the rails of communist propaganda and started the production of porcelain figurines on new topics. Now, a hundred years later, Soviet collective farmers, athletes, heroes of Russian fairy tales and dancers in the outfits of the Union republics are becoming a rarity, so individual copies can be very expensive.

"The Awakening East" (cost about 1.5 million rubles)

“The Liberated Woman of the East” reads a newspaper, probably to improve her political literacy - this figurine, also called “Turchanka”, was created in 1920 for the first congress of the peoples of the East, held in the city of Baku. The author of the statuette is a unique woman, artist and writer Elena Yakovlevna Danko, who worked as a porcelain painter at the Petrograd (Leningrad) Porcelain Factory for only five years, but managed to create many wonderful works during this time.

A porcelain beauty in a very daring outfit was very popular in the USSR. Over the decades, it has been released in a variety of color options. However, there is one batch of which very few copies remain today. The fact is that a portrait of Comrade Zinoviev was depicted on the newspaper read by this rare Turkish woman. After 1936, when the famous revolutionary was declared an "enemy of the people" and shot, this version of the "Turkish woman" was almost completely destroyed. The remaining copies have become a rarity, and at one of the auctions in recent years, such a figurine was sold for 20 thousand pounds.

"Lovers" (cost about 2.5 million rubles)

The statuette, in its theme and style, is very far from socialist realism, was released in the first years of Soviet power at the State Porcelain Factory according to the author's sketches of the famous artist Konstantin Somov. Konstantin Andreevich worked at the factory for less than a year, painting limited editions of porcelain figurines. After he left, replays were released, and this figure belongs to them. However, almost a hundred years later, in 2011, "Lovers" were sold in London at Sotheby's for 30 thousand pounds.

Porcelain chess "Red and White" (cost about 3 million rubles)

Ideologically consistent chess symbolizes the struggle of the "red" figures over the world's evil. The Reds (they are also white) are the workers 'and peasants' forces: the blacksmith king, the peasant queen, the officers are the Red Army men with Mauser, and the pawns are the peasants with sickles and wheat. Black pieces should personify the fallen tsarist regime: the skeleton king, his dark queen holding a cornucopia with coins, and pawns - chained and clearly oppressed workers. Probably, for Black's victory, one could expect execution on the spot. It is precisely such examples of communist agitation that are highly valued today, as they are objects characteristic of a bygone era. Their auction price was 31,500 pounds. The author of the sketches of unusual chess was Natalya Danko - Elena Danko's sister. Talented artists worked together at the factory for some time, there are several works they created in co-authorship.

"Girl with Apples" (cost about 6.5 million rubles)

The same figurine of a girl carrying a basket of apples can be seen in the porcelain collection of the Hermitage. Perhaps for this reason, its cost at an auction in New York rose to 10 thousand dollars. The 18cm figurine is considered very rare. It was made at the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory in 1927.

Porcelain pair "Blacksmith and Reaper" (cost about 12 million rubles)

This pair of figurines is another great example of propaganda porcelain. The statuettes depicting two toddlers bravely undertaking hard work are signed by Yekaterina Yakimovskaya. This artist worked at the LFZ until 1924, and few of her works have survived. Perhaps that is why the price of the figures at the auction exceeded the declared value ten times. The Blacksmith and Reaper sold for a record $ 188,500.

In every epoch, objects appear that can be considered a "sign of the times"