Up for auction "French taste", which will be held on 8 November 2013 in Paris, will be offered service with Imperial provenance, which was a milestone in the history of French silverwork. Estimate 1,5–2 million pounds

8 November 2013 auction house Christie's to auction "French taste" Orlovsky service with Imperial provenance, which was a milestone in the history of French silver dela@

Set, numbering over 2000 subjects, was made in 1770 by the French silversmith Jacques Retera (1707-1784) and his son Jacques-Nicolas Retera (1736-1788). Today, the service is considered to be one of the first examples of Neoclassicism in silversmithing. Despite the fact that the individual items in this set sometimes come up for auction, the collection offered at Christie's, and the biggest in the last 20 let@

Catherine the Great ordered a set for my own use, but then gave it to her favorite, count Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (1734-1783). After the death of Orlov, the Empress to purchase the service from the heirs of count, and he remained in the Imperial collection until the moment when the Soviet government put it up for held in 1930-ies in Berlin auction. Separate the items from the service subsequently resold by the leading Parisian art dealers, in particular Jacques Helft; and the result was the largest private collections of families like Rothschild, Camondo and Ortiz-Patino, as well as in the world's museums (the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of art, the St. Petersburg Hermitage and other).

the Order of Catherine the manufacture of service was transmitted by sculptor Étienne Maurice Falconet Parisian silversmiths masters the Jacques and Jacques-Nicolas Ratier, and they did the job just 18 months. Service (up to the present day remained, unfortunately, only the tenth part of all subjects) is a masterpiece, designed in the Rococo and late Baroque. From it up for auction tureen (estimate 1,5–2 million Euro) and four chandelier (estimate: 500-800 thousand euros). Together with them there will be two wine cooler works of Robert-Joseph Auguste from Kazan set (estimate 400-600 thousand euros) and two dishes with lids on the racks of the Nizhniy Novgorod service (estimate 60-80 thousand euros).

Pre-auction exhibition "French taste" will be held in Paris from 4 to 7 November 2013 goda@

Source: press release Christie's