A RUSSIAN FIGURE OF 'PIONEER WITH A DRUM'

A RARE RUSSIAN PORCELAIN FIGURE OF 'PIONEER WITH A DRUM', probably circa 1926, marked for the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory, Leningrad, after the Soviet model by Maria Strakhovskaia (1888-1962), modelled as a young boy standing barefoot, looking to the sky, wearing a white shirt, red neckerchief, and blue shorts, playing a yellow drum suspended from a strap around his left shoulder, raised on a rocky base painted with foliate sprays in green, 15.5cm high, circular impressed hammer, sickle and cog mark, impressed Cyrillic initials 'ИК' [IK] for modeller Ivan Kuznetsov, and printed 'Made in Russia U.S.S.R' SPF export mark in red (minor restoration to left leg) FOOTNOTES: Maria Mikhailovna Strakhovskaya (1888-1962) studied at the Society for the Encouragement of Artists (1907-1914), and was a member of art associations including the Society of Russian Sculptors, and Monolith. This figure is amongst a remarkable series of 'Pioneer' figures commissioned by the Lomonosov factory from Strakhovskaia in the mid-1920's. This series includes 'Pioneer walking with a drum', 'Pioneer with fanfare', 'Pioneer in the pose "Always ready" with a drum at his feet', 'Pioneer with a hammer', and 'Pioneer with a flag'. The sculptor, Ivan Kuznetsov, worked at the Imperial Porcelain Factory from 1910, and continued to work there after the 1917 Revolution. The figures produced by the factory, particularly in the early 1920's, were available to a limited number of people as they were luxury products produced in small numbers. A similar figure is illustrated by T.N. Nosovich and I.P. Popova, Gosudarstvennyi farforovyi zavod, 1904-1944 (2005), p.611. Another was exhibited as part of the 'Children of the Soviet State' exhibition in the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, from September-November 2017; see the catalogue (2017), p.87, no.102. See also the figure exhibited as part of the current 'Voice of the Time. Soviet Porcelain: Art and Propaganda' exhibition in The State Hermitage Museum from December 2017, accession no. МФ 6173; see the catalogue (2017), p.134, no.56. Other Soviet porcelain figures after models by Maria Strakhovskaia, including a Young Blacksmith and a Young Thresher, were sold by Sotheby's in New York, 12 April 2011, lot 172.