Imperial Porcelain Factory Easter egg with miniature after Feodor Bruni’s (1799-1875) Prayer of Gethsemane, St. Petersburg, 1850s
Imperial Porcelain Factory Easter egg with miniature after Feodor Bruni’s (1799-1875) Prayer of Gethsemane, St. Petersburg, 1850s
Imperial Porcelain Factory Easter egg with miniature after Feodor Bruni’s (1799-1875) Prayer of Gethsemane, St. Petersburg, 1850s

Imperial Porcelain Factory Easter egg with miniature after Feodor (Fidelio) Bruni’s (1799-1875) Prayer of Gethsemane, St. Petersburg, 1850s

The miniature signed with the Cyrillic initials I.Kh.

Porcelain, enamel glazes, gilding

Height 4 1/2 in. (11.4 cm)

Inv. no. ab_0333


Bruni’s painting the Prayer of the Chalice (or the Prayer of Gethsemane) was enormously popular during his lifetime. The first copy was made for a church in Rome and then copied for the church within the Imperial Academy of Arts. In 1846, Emperor Nicholas I (ruled 1825-1855) ordered a third copy for his son and heir. It remained in the Winter Palace until 1897, when it was transferred to the Alexander III Russian Museum. Today it remains in the renamed Russian Museum. For more on this design, see I.A. Golʹskii and T.A. Lykova, Paskhalʹnye iaitsa. Imperatorskii farforovyi zavod, Sankt-Peterburg. Chastnaia kollektsiia. Moscow: Fond "Razvitie narodnogo obshchestva 'Grani'", 2017, nos. 110 and 111.