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Before the service was dispatched to Russia Wedgwood's partner Thomas Bentley compiled a catalogue for Catherine II with the titles of all the views in French. The numbers given to the views in Bentley's catalogue were written in dark brown ink on the backs of all the items. The figures 768 on the inside of the lid are one such number. The second mark Ã.×. 8534 in red oil paint appeared much later, in 1912. It was then that the Green Frog Service was removed from Peterhof to St Petersburg for display in the Imperial Hermitage. All palace services were at that time on the books of the Chamberlain's Department (Gofmarshalskaya chast) of the imperial court. One of its most important responsibilities was the imperial family's table and those who served at it. When it was decided to display the Green Frog Service in the Hermitage, the set was given to the museum for temporary, rather than permanent keeping. New inventories were drawn up and corresponding inventory numbers were placed on the pieces, beginning with the Russian initials of the Chamberlain's Department. After the 1917 revolution, the inventories remained in use and the sequence of numbers continued. Only the letters Ã.×. became a part of history and European porcelain that came into the Hermitage's stocks after 1917 was given numbers preceded by the letters Ç.Ô. (Western porcelain). |
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