PROBABLY NORTH EUROPEAN, LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Of Cossack origin, the Razumovsky family was ennobled in the mid-eighteenth century, when brothers Alexey, the morganatic husband of Empress Elizabeth of Russia, and Kirill Razumovsky, a brilliant military mind of his time, were elevated to the rank of count. Kirill's son Andrey was the most well-known member of the family throughout Europe as he served as Russian plenipotentiary ambassador at the Vienna Congress of 1814-15, during which he strengthened Russia's influence in Poland, for which he was elected to the rank of Prince of the Russian Empire in 1816. By then he had already spent most of his time in Vienna, where he was an active member of society. He was an excellent amateur musician and a patron of Beethoven. It is possible that these cache-pots were commissioned by him, possibly for his newly-built Palais Rasumofsky. Alexey passed away in Vienna in 1836, and with his death the Russian branch of the Razumovsky family became extinct.