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Centrepiece: Knight on Horseback |
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This sculptural group was made according to a design and model furnished by Edmund Cotterill. Judging by archival documentation, it was part of the London Service which was ordered from the English workshops of R. & S. Garrard, Mortimer & Hunt, and Hunt & Roskell following the visit to London of Emperor Nicholas I in 1844. Among the seven sculptural groups which were included in this service, the first one mentioned in the documents is that by Garrard: “a knight on horseback, with goblet in his hands, facing a standing figure.” The service had a total of around 1680 separate items, some of which (principally those in glass, crystal, porcelain, and the supports for sculptural groups) were made in St Petersburg at the atelier attached to the English Shop of Nichols & Plinke, at the P. Sazikov Factory, and at the Imperial Porcelain and Glass Factories. The Knight on Horseback is a characteristic work of R. & S.
Garrard from the Victorian period. The essential features of this style
were attention to national history, a certain idealisation of heroic elements,
and at the same time scrupulous accuracy in portraying details of daily
life. Garrard’s designer Edmund Cotterill was a leading exponent of this
style.
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