Depicted partially draped on a rustic fountain with a mask and fully sculpted swans
22¹⁄₂ in. (57.1 cm.) high, 9¹⁄₄ in. (23.4 cm.) wide, 5¹⁄₄ in. (13.3 cm.) deep

Ivan Andreievich Galnbeck (1855-1934), St. Petersburg, Russia, circa 1905.
Frederick P. Victoria and Son, New York and sold Christie’s, New York, 27 May, 1999, lot 41.

L’exposition retrospective des oeuvres des Beaux-Arts à St. Petersbourg, 1904.
Les trésors d’art en Russie, Edition de la Société Impériale d’Encouragement des Beaux-Arts, 1905, no. 117.
‘Napoleon and His Age,’ The Nassau County Museum of Art, 28 January-29 April 2001, p.93.

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Lot Essay

This base is identical to the bases of a pair of candelabra in the English Embassy, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris and illustrated in J. Vacquier, Le Style Empire, vol. I, pl. 41, Paris, 1920. And this connection illustrates the strong stylistic links between Bergenfeldt’s work and that of the Parisian makers, such as Claude Galle, that were so influential in the Russian Empire period.
Galnbeck (or Gal’nbeck or Halnbeck) was a Russian architect and served as the first chairman of the Russian Applied Arts Society (1904-1908) and until 1922 was the senior librarian and professor at the Baron Stieglitz Central School of Applied Arts. He also worked for the Fabergé enterprise, although it is not known in what capacity and, additionally, designed porcelain for the Kornilov factory. After the Revolution, with the collapse of the luxury enterprises, in the 1920s, Galnbeck worked at several other state museums, including the Hermitage. As the noose tightened for the formerly Imperial intellectuals and aesthetes, Galnbeck was arrested in 1930, his collections confiscated and he was sentenced to internal exile (W. Lowes and C. L. McCanless, Fabergé Eggs: A Retrospective Encyclopedia, Lanham, MD, 2001, p. 200).