This plate is offered by the descendants of Tallis Augustus Avis (1886-1966), whose collection of Important Soviet Porcelain was sold at Christie's, London, in June 2013.

'Gus' Avis was an active Socialist, who worked at County Hall as a local government officer and was secretary of The Union of International Authorities in London. In the early 1920s he attended a sale held to raise funds for Russia following the famine of 1921. It was there that he acquired the collection of Soviet porcelain. When Gus died in 1966 the collection was bequeathed to his two sons, Peter Avis (1929-2012), a journalist for The Morning Star and The Observer, and John Avis, an artist.

For a similar plate after a design by Sergei Chekhonin, dated 1919, see N. Lobanov-Rostovsky, Revolutionary Ceramics, New York, 1990, pp. 78-79, no. 67.