Hermitage Days – 2010
Buried Treasure of Factory Owner Likhacheva

8 December 2010 an exhibition Buried Treasure of Factory Owner Likhacheva from the collection of the State Hermitage was opened at the Winter Palace (Hall 152). Presented at the exposition is one of the rarest complexes of historical welfare silverware which belonged to a rich St Petersburg family.

Memorial dishes and cups, frames and supports for crystal vases, tea pots, milk cans, sugar bowls, cutlery, sets for drinks, salt shakers made of silver by Russian smiths of the second half of the 19th – early 20th century in various techniques have distinct forms and de'cor. The most numerous group of items is comprised of items designed in the so called Russian style. The earliest among them, a salt shaker in the form of tub, is the rarest sample of interpretation of national theme in decorative applied art of the first quarter of the 19th century.

A number of items have engraved donative inscriptions for Maria Ivanovna Likhacheva, owner of the Nevsky Wallpaper Factory which was located at the 3rd line of Vasilievsky Island in building 52 until 1917. In this very building in 1978 (at this time the Voskhod Shoe Factory operated here) a buried treasure, containing more than two hundred items, was discovered. Presumably, when leaving the revolutionary Petrograd, the family of Likhachevs decided to leave family silver in its factory, in a hiding place.

The factory promptly called a specialist from the State Hermitage. It became possible to classify the collection scientifically and examine its artistic value only after continuous diligent restoration of all items. Valuable items, hidden under the floor, were badly damaged by moisture and aggressive substances used in the new production and had various damages. Restoration was conducted in the Laboratory of Scientific Restoration of Precious Metals of the State Hermitage (headed by I. Malkiel).

A set of items discovered in the building of former Nevsky Wallpaper Factory is of high artistic and historical cultural significance. The variety of forms and de'cor, techniques for designing the exhibited items allows you to explore the main peculiarities of development of silversmithing in Russia throughout almost an entire century, as well as attests for artistic tastes of well-off St Petersburg bourgeoisie to which Maria Ivanovna Likhacheva belonged.

The curator of the exhibition Buried Treasure of Factory Owner Likhacheva is A. Solin, research associate of the Department of the History of Russian Culture of the State Hermitage. A scientific illustrated catalog has been prepared for the exhibition (Publishing House of the State Hermitage, 2010).

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At the ceremony of the opening

A. Solin, curator of the exhibition

I. Malkiel, Head of the Laboratory of Scientific Restoration of Precious Metals of the State Hermitage

At the exhibition

One of the display windows with items

Catalogue of the exhibition