The service Leningrad in the Siege. 1943. Shapes designed by Sergei Chekhonin. Painted decoration by Lidiya Lebedinskaya. Porcelain: polychrome overglaze painting, gilding with selective polishing
The exhibition features some 40 works by the artists of the Leningrad Porcelain Factory named after M.V. Lomonosov from the stocks of the museum and the Imperial Porcelain Factory joint-stock company: services, vases and sculptural compositions with painted decoration made in 1943–45 and in the post-war period that is devoted to Leningrad during the siege and heroic images from Soviet history. This display is supplemented by documentary photographs taken by the wartime TASS photo-correspondent Yevgeny Khaldei.
Beginning in September 1943, the factory’s artistic laboratory under the direction of Nikolai Suetin resumed work. A group of artists produced porcelain with painted decoration that became a real artistic chronicle of the life and defence of the beleaguered city. The service Leningrad in the Siege might be pointed out as an iconic work from that period. In its painted medallions Lidiya Lebedinskaya showed the most terrible winter in the besieged city and the heroic endurance of its inhabitants.
Among the artists of the Leningrad Porcelain Factory there were those who had participated directly in military operations. One of them, Ivan Riznich, served as a radio operator aboard the mine-sweeper Shuya in the Baltic Sea. Returning to the factory in 1945, he depicted views of naval battles in the decoration of the service The Red Banner Baltic Fleet in the Patriotic War.
Particularly noteworthy are the works dedicated to the Great Victory, on which one can often find depictions of a festive artillery salute. Small articles were produced – medallions, cups and saucers, decorative dishes and others , as well as some monumental works, such as the grand Victory vase, presented as a gift to Joseph Stalin (the exhibition includes a photograph of that piece). A picture of the peaceful life in the land of the victors is provided by the painting of a large anniversary vase The Great Soviet State executed by Lidiya Lebedinskaya in 1947.
Alongside formal portraits of Generalissimo Stalin and the military commanders, post-war porcelain sculpture included images of rank-and-file defenders of the Fatherland: the “Partisan” Veniamin Bogoliubov, the “Warrior-Liberator” Anatoly Kolodin. The sculptures also depicted the victorious soldiers returned from the war: the groups By the Oak of Home by Vasily Stamov and Builders of Communism by Anna Leporskaya and Mikhail Anikushin.
Works devoted to wartime events and victory were usually produced for notable anniversaries of 9 May. In 1975, for example, the factory’s craftspeople created several services, vases and dishes decorated with images of the symbols of Victory and military valour. Relief medallions, plaques and plaquettes were also made. In the display visitors can see biscuit medallions from Bronislav Bystrushkin’s composition Invincibles and a relief plaque made by Tatiana Linchevskaya for the 40th anniversary of Victory.
Besides unique works intended for public exhibtion, for each significant event in the country’s history the factory’s artists also designed articles for mass-production. The memorable 9 May anniversary was no exception. The display includes several articles of this sort, including gift cups.
One of the most important items in the exhibition is the precious Order of Victory from the collection of the Hermitage, the highest award for a military commander and the rarest in the world. The recipients of the order, depicted in porcelain, appear in the present-day Marshals of Victory composition by the sculptor Alexey Nicheporchuk. Sculptures of Stalin, Zhukov, Govorov, Konev and Rokossovsky are supplemented by a porcelain copy of the Order of Victory made by the sculptor Anatoly Danilov.
The exhibition was prepared by the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory, a department of the State Hermitage (headed by Anna Vladimirovna Ivanova). The photographs for the exhibition were provided by the Art of Foto gallery.
The curator of the exhibition is Natalia Anatolyevna Shchetina, Candidate of Art Studies, a researcher in the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory.