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Lot Essay
One of about 60 individual hardstone figures which Franz Birbaum in his memoirs regards as 'the most remarkable stone creations', the figure of a street painter is one of the very few which are remembered and described, 'The most successful human figures were: a priest....and a painter with a bucket and brushes on his back. The extremely comic effect is achieved by the successful rendering of the proportions of the body. The painter's clothes, daubed with paint and lime, are of speckled Siberian azurite [lapis-lazuli] and Orskaia jasper. The models of these figures were made by the sculptor Fredman-Cluzel'.
in the pure tradition of the Fabergé firm, the most minute details have been taken care of by the sculptor, like the use of lapis-lazuli at the bottom of the bucket to imitate the paint in it or the rough unpolished parts of the trousers to give a far better imitation of the lime. It is worth to notice that a second version of the street painter which is sometimes confused with the first one, has a rodhonite shirt shirt with similar trousers, see Christie's New York 24 October 2002, lot 119.
It is not unusual to see different versions of the same model. For example the figures of John Bull typifying 'the englishman' was executed three times, each time using different stones, see Christie's Geneva, a highly important collection of works of art by carl Fabergé from the collection of the late Sir Charles Clore, footnote of lot 29.
The figure follows the tradition of the Russian porcelain factories of the late 18th and 19th centuries like Popov and Gardner, which in turn were inspired by the publications of J.G.Georgi's work Description de toutes les nations de l'Empire de Russie' in St.Petersburg in 1776-1777, and later of Collection de Cris et Costumes de Paysans et Paysannes de St.Petesbourg, by A.O.Orlovskii in 1825, but also the coloured prints of the book The Magical Lantern published in St.Petersburg in 1817 which include the image of a very similar street painter.
in the pure tradition of the Fabergé firm, the most minute details have been taken care of by the sculptor, like the use of lapis-lazuli at the bottom of the bucket to imitate the paint in it or the rough unpolished parts of the trousers to give a far better imitation of the lime. It is worth to notice that a second version of the street painter which is sometimes confused with the first one, has a rodhonite shirt shirt with similar trousers, see Christie's New York 24 October 2002, lot 119.
It is not unusual to see different versions of the same model. For example the figures of John Bull typifying 'the englishman' was executed three times, each time using different stones, see Christie's Geneva, a highly important collection of works of art by carl Fabergé from the collection of the late Sir Charles Clore, footnote of lot 29.
The figure follows the tradition of the Russian porcelain factories of the late 18th and 19th centuries like Popov and Gardner, which in turn were inspired by the publications of J.G.Georgi's work Description de toutes les nations de l'Empire de Russie' in St.Petersburg in 1776-1777, and later of Collection de Cris et Costumes de Paysans et Paysannes de St.Petesbourg, by A.O.Orlovskii in 1825, but also the coloured prints of the book The Magical Lantern published in St.Petersburg in 1817 which include the image of a very similar street painter.