Engraved with a large lion rampant below crown and within a Cyrillic inscription, the border with relief scenes of pairs of birds and mythical animals surrounded by berried foliage on reeded ground, marked with French control marks, maker's mark, Russian import marks with assay master, the backs also with English import marks for sponsor's initials EN, London, 1937

355 oz
11,040.5 g
diameter 10 in.
25.5 cm.

Catalogue note

The Youssoupov service, sometimes called the "Scandinavian" service, was commissioned in Paris for Prince Nicholas Borissovich Youssoupov (1827-1891) and his wife Countess Tatiana de Ribeaupierre (1828-1879); their names appear on the dinner plates for the service.
 
The Prince was a distinguished soldier, patron and philanthropist, who not only fought himself in the Crimean war but also personally financed field hospitals, ambulance trains, and rehabilitation centers. He was also a privy councilor and Grand Master of the Court. His wife, a relative of Potemkin, was a famous beauty of the era, painted by Winterhalter. The Princess' health was delicate, and the couple spent much of their time traveling abroad and at their Swiss residence on the banks of Lake Geneva. The service may have been a wedding gift in 1856 from Prince Nicholas' mother, who lived in Paris in a house in the Parc aux Princes and was a major figure in Second Empire society. A watercolor of the Oak Dining Room, the family’s private dining room in their palace on the Moika Canal in St. Petersburg, shows the Scandinavian service displayed there in cabinets by the third quarter of the 19th century.
 
In autumn 1917, as the Revolution gained force, Prince Felix Youssoupov - best known as one of the assassins of Rasputin - concealed the family's jewel collection, silver, and other objets d'art under a staircase in the family's Moscow house. Although their major-domo was tortured to reveal the hiding place, the pieces were not discovered until April, 1925. Photos taken at this time show the distinctive forms of the Scandinavian service among the tiaras and necklaces. The punch bowl is preserved in the Hermitage museum, but much of the rest of the service was sold, presumably through Antikvariat; the import marks on these plates show that they had left Russia to enter England by 1937.