Lomonosov Porcelain Factory

One (possibly apocryphal) Soviet-era anecdote has it that, in 1980, Grigory Romanov, then a candidate member of the Soviet Politburo and First Secretary of Leningrad, persuaded the head of the Hermitage Museum to loan him one of the famous table services created for Catherine II by the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory, to use in his daughter’s wedding. The celebrations went awry, however, when during toasts a guest accidentally dropped a cup, smashing it on the floor. This was taken as initiation of the time-honored tradition of smashing glassware in the fireplace, and much of the Catherine service was destroyed. The party chief and namesake of the Russian imperial house survived the ignominy, and was elevated to full party membership a year later, but was ousted from the Politburo by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, for “abuse of position,” with the wanton destruction of the Catherine service rumored to be on the list of grievances.

Lomonosov porcelain has witnessed countless court intrigues. It graced Russia’s imperial dinner tables for 150 years, then became a guilty pleasure of the Soviet nomenklatura, a treasured gift for honored and foreign guests.

The enterprise known the world over as Lomonosov Porcelain Factory was founded in St. Petersburg in 1744 as “The Porcelain Factory,” by a decree of Tsarina Elizabeth, Peter the Great’s daughter. It was the first porcelain enterprise in Russia and only the third in Europe.

The factory was made possible by Russian scientist Dmitry Vinogradov, who invented a means of mass production of porcelain, with a quality not unlike the famed Saxon and Chinese porcelain of the time. Vinogradov was a rather disorganized, profligate genius, and Elizabeth had to keep him “focused” on his task at hand, legend has it, by chaining him to his workbench and ordering an assistant to write down every “recipe” he concocted. Vinogradov succeeded in the end, though he would die an early death (at 39) from his labors.

Over the years, items produced at the factory would be specially marked, to indicate which tsar or tsarina was reigning at the time. But the very first marking used by the factory under Vinogradov’s guidance was “W” (a German transcription for the Russian “B” which is the first letter of Vinogradov). Just nine items with the marking “W” have survived to the present day. Seven are in Russian museums, two in private collections.

Initially, the factory produced mostly miniature items, such as snuffboxes for Empress Elizabeth, who used them as gifts for her favorites, candlesticks, Easter eggs, plates and trays. In 1756, Vinogradov designed a huge furnace that allowed for the manufacture of larger pieces. In the 1750s, the first figurines were produced.

Under Catherine II (1762-1796), the factory was reorganized, and in 1765 was renamed the Imperial Porcelain Factory. By the end of the 18th century, the factory flourished, becoming one of the leading enterprises in Europe. Luxury table sets appeared during this period. The factory did such a fine job replicating some broken pieces of a service Catherine had imported from Germany, that she ordered from the factory the first large imperial table setting – the famous Arabesque service (inspired frescoes unearthed at Herculaneum), for 60 persons (973 objects).

When Paul I (1796-1801) ascended to the throne, he inherited his mother’s interest in the Porcelain Factory and made several large orders. He visited the factory frequently, often bringing along honored guests. During his reign, table settings for two, so called de jeuner, became fashionable. The last table set manufactured in 18th century adorned the table in Mikhailovsky Palace on the eve of the Emperor’s assassination.

During the reign of Alexander I (1801-1825), the most qualified domestic and foreign artisans were invited to work at the factory.  The famous Gurievsky table setting, celebrating Russia’s victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, was ordered for the Emperor’s family; it included 4500 objects and was gilded with several kilograms of gold.

During the 19th century, imperial interest in the factory waxed and waned, and a variety of new styles and motifs were introduced. But nothing could have prepared the factory for what would come next.

In the Soviet era, porcelain became a vehicle of revolutionary ideas. Peaceful landscapes, antique and flower ornaments, fantastic Chinese motives, and pastoral pictures were replaced by hammers and sickles, smoke-puffing factories, the worker and collective farm woman, busts of Karl Marx, figurines of Red Army soldiers, a woman sewing the Soviet Flag and others (needless to say, early Soviet-era porcelains have become hot items at recent auctions). Luxurious table settings were replaced with simple white porcelain plates with “RSFSR” (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) or “The Victory of the Working Masses!” In 1927, to mark the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution, a jug was produced with the Roman numeral X and a picture of a worker with a hammer.

However, for a time, porcelain was also used as a material for implementing a new trend in art, Suprematism, which emerged around Kazimir Malevich. It used pure geometric forms and conveyed no ideology whatsoever.

From 1917-1928 the factory was managed by Sergey Chekhonin, a talented graphic painter who was the first to use such symbols as the hammer and sickle and bundles of wheat, which later appeared as part of the Soviet national emblem.

In 1925, to celebrate the bicentennial of the Russian Academy of Science, the factory was renamed after the great Russian scientist, Mikhail Lomonosov.

During the years of Khrushchev’s Thaw, the extreme decoration and pomposity of porcelain during Stalin’s period was rejected in favor of a renewed interest in simpler, white porcelain. Experimental shapes and even constructivism were also characteristic of that era. Most notably, at that time a new technology was invented that allowed for production of fine alabaster (bone) porcelain, characterized by greater whiteness and transparency.

The Lomonosov Porcelain Factory has survived the post-Soviet economic revolution with remarkable success, and now produces over 500 items, including tea, coffee and dinner services, souvenir items, plates and dishes, vases, decorative trays, etc, that are made of solid, soft or alabaster (bone) porcelain, with over- and under-glaze decoration, often handmade.

One reason for this success was foreign investment. In 1993, the Lomonosov Factory was privatized, with 64% of shares initially going to foreign investors. A few years ago, however,  Galina Tsvetkova, a well-known collector of porcelain and wife of the president of energy giant Nikoil, received a 26% share in the company as a birthday present, to which she later added 30% bought from The US-Russia Investment Fund, giving her control of the Factory.

On the site of the factory there is a Porcelain Museum, which features a collection of items produced by the factory from the middle of the 18th century to the present day. In 1993, the museum, founded in 1844 to mark the factory’s 100th anniversary, was included as part of the Museum Fund of Russia, yet its legal status remained uncertain until the collection was attached to the Hermitage in 2001. As a result, today, the factory can produce high quality copies of items from the Hermitage collection, using both the LFZ trademark and the Hermitage logo.

– Dasha Demourova