GARDNER - RUSSIAN PORCELAIN FIGURINE, 19th CENTURY

GARDNER - RUSSIAN PORCELAIN FIGURINE, 19th CENTURY
GARDNER - RARE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL PORCELAIN FIGURINE, 19th CENTURY
A rare antique porcelain figurine "Balalaika Player". The figurine is executed at a high level, perfectly worked out even in the smallest details, neatly painted.
With a red stamp of the Gardner Factory under the two-headed imperial eagle and a red number 14 on the pedestal.
There is also an embossed stamp with the inscription "GARDNER" and a number "H5".
The famous Gardner factory was considered the best porcelain enterprise of the Russian Empire. Similar figurines depicting peasant life were very popular in the 19th century.
We have included a biography of Gardner below.
CONDITION: Overall condition is good. Please refer to pictures and email with any questions.
SIZE: H. 8 in. (20.3 cm).
REFERENCE: For an identical figure see, Porcelain in Russian 18th-19th centuries, The Gardner Factory, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, 2003.
ESTIMATE PRICE: $6,000 - $7,000.
You have a GREAT CHANCE to purchase a unique item for your collection - over the years it will only INCREASE in price.
HISTORY of SALES: A few years ago Gardner's Porcelain Figures were sold on Live Aictioneer for $9,000, $10,000, $12,000 and $14,000 (!!) - please see the screenshots.
PAY in PARTS: You can pay for any item during 2-3 months. Just make a deposit 10% and the item will wait for you.
SHIPPING: Combined shipping is available.
PLEASE NOTE: If you want to buy this item, please make a bid now. Any offer is welcome. Some lots, that do Not Have any Bids on them, WILL be CLOSED before the auction is started and will not be included in it. Now, there are 1000+ items for preview, but there will be only 400 items in the Live Auction.
NEW: Returning customers will have 50% DISCOUNT on shipping.

HISTORY: Gardner Factory Russian Porcelain founded at Verbilki, near Moscow, by the Englishman Francis Gardner in 1766, and known for its hard paste porcelains, the Gardner factory served as important competition for the Imperial Porcelain Factory, spurring artists at both institutions to produce more complicated wares in terms of both form and decoration. One of two porcelain works in Russia during the 18th century, The factory was situated in the Gjelsk region where local clay, which proved suitable for porcelain, could be used. Gardner started with a German manager called Gattenberg, who later joined the Imperial Factory, and he employed a well-known German painter, Kestner. But these and other foreigners taught many Russian craftsmen, principally serfs, who gradually replaced them, as soon as they had mastered the various techniques; so that the number of foreigners employed in key positions steadily diminished in course of time. The factory was operated by the family for three generations until 1891, when it was taken over by Kusnetzoff. The Gardner Factory made lesser quality wares for export and higher quality pieces for the capital trade. In 1777 the Empress Catherine teh Great commissioned the Gardner Factory to produce four dessert services for the receptions held in the Winter Palace. Each service included plates, round and long leaf-shaped dishes, baskets of various sizes for fruit, and a variety of ice cups. Among its other notable works were colored figurines of Russian subjects in unglazed biscuit porcelain.
Gardner porcelain had a wide variety of marks in the 140 years of its existence. Different shapes of the Latin letter G, painted underglaze in blue or black, were most frequent in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Occasionally the mark is similar to the Meissen crossed swords with a star. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century the full name of the factory, impressed either in Cyrillic or Latin characters, becomes more frequent. In the second half of the nineteenth century the mark is usually the Moscow St George and Dragon crest, surrounded by a circle, bearing the full name of the factory, at first impressed, and later painted in green or red. In the last decades of the factory's existence the double-headed eagle was added to the design, and this elaborate mark continued after the Gardner firm had been absorbed by Kuznetsov.