- Museum number
- 1981,1208.2
- Description
-
Plate; hard-paste porcelain, painted in overglaze colours; in the centre, a cluster of factory buildings billowing with smoke from which emerges a slogan; to the right, a classical temple and a red star; above, a Futurist-style motif of folded red ribbons; round the rim, a hammer, sickle, axe and carpenter's plane with another slogan.
- Production date
-
1919 (designed)
-
1920 (decorated)
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 23.50 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Made at the State Porcelain Factory in 1919, and decorated in 1920 by the factory painters after a design by V. P. Belkin.
Text from J. Rudoe 'Decorative Arts 1850-1950. A catalogue of the British Museum collection'. 2nd ed. 1994. no.18.
Before the Revolution Belkin had studied in Paris and worked in St Petersburg as a painter and graphic artist. He made designs for the State Porcelain Factory from 1919 to 1921 and later taught at the State art schools and at the Leningrad Academy of Architecture.
This design was created to commemorate the second anniversary of the October Revolution. The classical temple and the red star symbolise the old order giving way to the new Soviet State Unusually, the blank for this plate was made after the Revolution and does not have the Imperial marks or the turned moulding found on the backs of many pre-revolutionary plates (see Decorative Arts 1850-1950.Cat. 2, 34-5, 337, 340-41, 343, 345. 350, 352-3 and 355-6) Another plate with this design, dated 1919 and initialled by the factory artist Alisa Golenkina, is held by the Museum of the Lomonossov Porcelain Factory, Leningrad (Andreeva, L. 'Soviet Porcelain 1920-1930, Moscow 1975, 152; Oxford and London, Museum of Modern Art, 'Art into Production: Soviet Ceramics and Textiles', Oxford and Crafts Council, London 1984, no. 12; Vienna, Osterreichisches Museum für angewante Kunst. 'Kunst und Revolution. Russiche und Sowjetische Kunst 1910-1932'. 1988, 159). The State Porcelain Factory was renamed the Lomonossov Porcelain Factory in 1925. [for an example subsequently acquired by the Museum, see 2000,0904.1]
For another frequently illustrated plate by Belkin, 'The Sower' see Gollerbach, E. 'La Porcelaine de la Manufacture d'Etat', Moscow 1922, 14, Andreeva 1975, 153 and Oxford and London 1984, 42. For further discussion of Russian revolutionary porcelain and bibliography, see Chekhonin, Decorative Arts 1850-1950, Cat. 35.
- Location
- On display (G48/dc4)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2016-2017 08 Sep-29 Jan, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 'A History of the World in 100 Objects'
2016 13 Feb-18 Jun, National Museum of Western Australia, Perth, 'A History of the World in 100 Objects'
2013 May-1 Sep, London, British Museum, Asian Propaganda
2003, Apr-Sep, BM, 'Museum of the Mind: Art and Memory in World Cultures'
- Associated events
- Commemoration of: Russian Revolution (2nd anniversary)
- Acquisition date
- 1981
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1981,1208.2
