Fit for a Russian Prince: The Galitzine Silver Tea Service
Massive Silver Tea & Coffee Service from the Collection of Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Galitzine (1843-1915)
This impressive silver service comprises an ivory-handled coffee pot, hot milk pot, tea pot, and two tea kettles on stands, as well as a waste bowl, a covered sugar bowl, a cream jug, and a two-handled tray. The tray is engraved with a Russian princely crown above the monogram G.S. for Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Galitzine. The set is contained in its original fitted oak travelling chest.
19th century, the tray by Ivan Gubkin, Moscow, dated 1867, other pieces stamped with the Imperial Warrant of Pavel Ovchinnikov, Moscow, 1887, and with French import marks.
Tray including handles: 32 1⁄4 x 20 1⁄2 in. (81.9 x 52.1 cm.). Height of larger tea kettle: 11 1⁄2 in (29.2 cm.); width including spout: 10 in. (25 cm.)
Gross weight: 375 troy ozs.
Provenance
- Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Galitzine, thence by descent.
- Purchased by a private collector from the Galitzine Family in Paris in the 1960s.
*SOLD*
SKU: 198M
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Additional Product Details
Ivan Gubkin, Moscow Silversmith, Supplier to the Imperial Court
The firm of Gubkin was founded in 1841 and rose to prominence in the International Fairs of St. Petersburg, Moscow and London in the 1860s. Its trademark was originality of design as well as silver chasing and casting in the Neo Roccoco style, as seen in the above tray. In addition, Gubkin is now recognized as having initiated and mastered the technique of trompe l’oeil silver, which was copied in the 1880s and 90s by Russian firms such as Khlebnikov and Sazikov, and in America by Tiffany and Company. Founded by silversmith Ivan Gubkin, his sons, Sergei and Dimitry, continued operations until the 1880s.
Sergei Mikhailovich Galitzine
As a member of one of Russia’s most distinguished princely families, Sergei Mikhailovich Galitzine was a pivotal cultural figure in both Moscow and his birthplace, France. Born in Paris in 1843, he was the only son of the wealthy art collector, bibliophile and diplomat Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich Galitzine (1804-1860) and Princess Maria Ilyichna Dolgoruky (1822-1907). At the age of 17, Sergei inherited his father’s vast art collection and estate, including a library of over 20,000 volumes. Two years later, he executed his father’s will by opening the Galitzine Museum in Moscow, one of the first Western European art museums to open in Russia. The Hermitage purchased the entire Galitzine collection in 1886. Afterwards, portions of the collection were dispersed to various museums and academies across the empire, first on the order of Emperor Alexander III and later in the 1920s and 1930s, while others remained in the Hermitage and a few sold abroad. Many of the paintings and objects of art were reunited in a traveling exhibition at the Hermitage in 2004.
An influential aristocratic landowner with close ties to the Imperial family, Sergei served as Chamberlain to the Imperial Court and Grand Master of the Imperial Hunt. Like his father, who remained active in France, he played a major role in building St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Nice. The prince had four wives. His third wife, Baroness Vera Leonardovna Steinheil (1875-1957) inherited the tea service, and passed it down to her daughter, Princess Irina Sergeevna Galitzine.*
The centerpiece of this large tea service is its two-handled tray engraved with the crowned initials of Sergei Mikhailovich, and dated 1867. The Prince, then 24 years old and recently married, may well have received the tray made by the renowned silversmith, Gupkin of Moscow, for his wedding. A complete tea and coffee service resulted in the ensuing years, together with a traveling case to house its pieces on numerous excursions to and from Paris. <p>
For more information on the Galitzine Family, see Alexandre A. and Christine H. Galitzine, The Princes Galitzine, Washington DC, 2002.
Images courtesy Noel Allum, 2010
