A RUSSIAN IMPERIAL PORCELAIN CUP AND SAUCER WITH EARLY SOVIET DECORATION, MANUFACTURED FOR THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL PORCELAIN FACTORY, 1895, ILLUSTATED BY ALEXANDRA SCHEKATIKHINA-POTOTSKAYA, STATE PORCELAIN FACTORY, 1919, the delicate porcelain teacup and saucer with ornate hand-painted decoration, the exterior of the cup depicts a green-faced beast frightening a damsel in a fantastic garden, height of cup: 7 cm. (2 3/4 in.), diameter of saucer: 16 cm. (6 1/4 in.), blocked out Imperial cypher of Nicholas II, dated 1895, blue oeverglazed mark of the State Porcelain Factory, dated 1919 on each piece, initialed in Cyrillic 'Sch' on base of each piece LOT NOTES: A member of the World of Art, Alexandra Schekatikhina-Pototskaya was a multi-faceted artist working in a variety of media including costume design and porcelain decoration. Between 1908 and 1913 she studied under Nicholas Roerich, with whom she decorated the Church of the Holy Spirit at Talashkino, and Ivan Bilibin, whom she later married in 1923. Schekatikhina-Pototskaya designed costumes for a number of stage performances, including Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Le Sacre du printemps during Sergei Diaghilev’s Saisons Russes at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Sadko at the People’s House in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). She moved to Paris in 1925, where she worked for the porcelain factories Sevres and Limoges. In 1936 the artist returned to St. Petersburg, where she worked under Nikolai Suetin at the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory until 1953. Over the course of her long and illustrious career, Schekatikhina-Pototskaya took part in the World of Art exhibitions (1915-1922, 1927), the First State Free Exhibition of Works of Art (1919), the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris (1925), the Salon d’Automne (1926–34), the Terza Mostra Internazionale delle Arti Decorative in Monza (1927), and Salon des Tuileries (1931) among others. LITERATURE: A very similar 1918 work, titled 'Konek Gorbunok' by Alexandra Schekatikhina-Pototskaya illustrated in I. Pelinski and M. Safonova, Sovetskii Farfor 1917-1991 (Moscow: Liubimaya Kniga, 2012), ill. p. 259 PROVENANCE: The current owner acquired the work at Sotheby`s.