7: Russian Furniture of the Epoch of Historicism

In the 1830s the fascination with the Ancient World entered a new phase. The styles known as "Neo-Grecian" and "Pompeian" appeared. The prototypes chosen for imitations were works of Graeco-Hellenistic art and the discoveries made recently during the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The decoration of the furniture set from the Pompeian Dining-Room of the Winter Palace, created in the workshops of the Gambs brothers to sketches by Alexander Briullov imitates the painting on ancient red-figure vases.
In parallel with the "Neo-Grecian" a "Russian style" developed that was linked with the process of artists reassessing the nation's cultural heritage. It was the architect Fiodor Solntsev who, in the 1840s and 1850s, first drew attention to the role of early Russian ornament as an important style-forming element. In the following years the development of the "Russian style" in the applied arts was taken up by Academy of Arts graduates Ippolito Monighetti, Victor Hartmann and Ivan Ropet. Many of their designs, for furniture too, were included in the seminal publication Motifs of Russian Architecture that had an appreciable influence on shaping clients' tastes. A type of armchair first made in Vasily Shutov's workshop, with a back in the form of an arch and "axes" for arms, became particularly popular.