Princess Maria Tenisheva (1867-1928), amaranth casket set with enamel plaques, Talashkino, circa 1907

Amaranth, enamel, brass, beryl

17 3/4 in. (45.1 cm.) wide

Inv. no. ab_9731

This extravagant jeweled and enamelled casket made from an exotic Latin American wood exemplifies the tastes and skills of its maker, Princess Maria Tenisheva (1867-1928), an expert enameller who was also a scholar and collector of the art. Like several other wealthy and influential Russians, she founded a design school and workshop intended to support and develop the kustar arts and their makers. Located at her estate Talashkino, students there produced works under the tutelage of Sergei Maliutin (1857-1939) and Alexei Zinoviev (1880-1942), a graduate of the Stroganov School who had worked in Fabergé’s Moscow workshops.

Talashkino’s wood shops produced folk-inspired objects made from woods easily found in Russia, but in this rare and refined work by her own hand, Tenisheva selected a richly colored tropical wood that has been polished to a high sheen. Her design evokes the jeweled caskets of Byzantium with quatrefoil-in-diamond plaques enamelled in bright, opaque colors (undoubtedly selected from among the hundreds she developed) and set with prominent cabochon cut beryls. Tenisheva was rightly proud of her creation and she exhibited it in London, Paris, Brussels and Prague between 1907 and 1911.

When opened, three birch shelves with tiny, enamelled pulls are revealed. These unusual fittings indicate that the casket was not meant to serve only as decoration. The firm of Fabergé and its competitors produced numerous ornately enamelled caskets around the turn of the century, but their smaller size and plain interiors suggest that, if they did not serve a primarily decorative function, they were intended to hold precious jewels or keepsakes. The shelves obviously lend themselves to the protection of papers, letters, and photographs, whether in the owner’s private rooms or as an imposing addition to a professional workspace.

Publications:

Roche, Denis. Les émaux champlevés de la Princesse Marie Ténichév. Paris: J. Povolozky & Cie, 1928.

Oser, Jesco. Mir emalei Kniagini Marii Tenishevoi. Moscow: J. Oser, 2004, pp. 84-85, illustrated p. 85; appendix 2, p. 153, no. 23).

Hardiman, Louise. “‘Infantine Smudges of Paint... Infantine Rudeness of Soul’: British Reception of Russian Art at the Exhibitions of the Allied Artists’ Association, 1908–1911,” in A People Passing Rude: British Responses to Russian Culture, ed. Anthony Cross. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2012, pp. 137-38.