Porcelain, Politics and Prestige in the 18th Century: Three Russian Empresses - Anna, Elizabeth and Catherine the Great

Lydia Liackhova

It was only relatively late, early in the eighteenth century, that Russia began to look upon itself as a European state. Collecting works of art became one means of asserting an understanding of the Western mindset and porcelain was to occupy a special place in the collecting sphere, serving as an indicator of the Russian elite's European preferences. For Russia the eighteenth century was the age of female rule: Anna, Elizabeth and Catherine held the throne for most of the period between 1730 and 1796. Each saw porcelain in her own way. For Anna it was a symbol of her attachment to European aesthetic ideals (and of course of her own prestige), and the empress thus prioritised the demonstration of elegant pieces in her state rooms. Under Elizabeth porcelain appeared on the table: as the daughter of Peter I she made a conscious and purposeful attempt to change the archaic nature of the norms of Russian life. Catherine II perceived the receipt of gifts of porcelain, and the commissioning of it, as a form of 'fragile diplomacy', one which she put to good use for her own political purposes. It was under Catherine that porcelain became the object of deliberate collecting and that the core of the imperial collections took shape.