Feodor Ruckert Faberge silver, cloisonné enamel

Early medieval Russian silver often included calm niello work and ornamental lines with black enamel. But under Tsar Peter the Great (1682-1725), who west­ernised the Russ­ian Empire, local silversm­iths began explor­ing modern forms. The Imperial family and weal­thy cl­asses dined from fash­ionable, solid-silver Baroque, Rococo, then Neoclassic-style gob­lets, plat­ters, caviar dishes and bas­kets. Showy gilt-silver cigar­ette cas­es, cigar cas­es and tankards sat on shelves. Silver mirrors, per­fume bott­l­es, powder boxes and jewel­l­ery caskets went onto ladies dressers.

Cloisonné: an enamelling technique made from soldering de­licate metal strips bent to the outline of a des­ign, and filling the result­ing cellular compartments with vitreous enam­el paste. The ob­j­ect then was fired, ground smooth & polished. The strips were made from gold, brass or silver. Eventually bright co­lourful clois­onné-enamel florals were popular. Many ob­jects featured bolder champlevé-enamel des­ig­ns, the recesses fil­led with vitreous enamel before firing.

The Late Imperial Era saw prolific prod­uction. Friedrich Ruckert (1840-1917) was born in South Germ­any. At 14 he emigrated to Russia to work for a princely family, now re­named Feodor Ruckert. He spent most of his life in his bel­oved Moscow, where he had his art work­sh­ops. Eventually he had 14 craftsmen working for him, having full control over the creat­ive and prod­uct­ion proc­esses.

                                                                              

Rückert was the most talented craftsman of enamelled silver objects in Imperial Russia. In Moscow, the cen­t­re of Russ­ian silver prod­uc­tion, he became an enamel master in 1886, working with every enamelling tech­n­ique (cloisonné, champlevé, en plein, guilloche and plique-à-jour).

Fol­lowing the Russian Revival style in the arts, Ruckert started producing traditional Russian des­igns, incorpor­ating foliage in de­l­icately shaded hues. Gradually his exper­im­ents with a more mod­ern colour palette and more intricate design el­ements develop­ed into a recognis­ab­le original style, while still tradit­ionally Slavic.

Rückert collaborated with some of the most resp­ected firms of his time. In 1886 he opened his own, new work­shop in Mos­cow and in 1887 he signed a cont­ract with Fab­ergé. In fact for 30 years Ruckert was the main supp­lier of clois­onné enamel for Fab­er­gé. Still, Ruck­ert supplied ot­h­­er important Rus­s­ian retailers eg Bolin.

Unlike other Europeans, Imperial Russians drank their tea at home and not in public tearooms. So the samovar was placed in the cent­re of the dining table and the accompanying tea sets had to be at­tractive. The tea sets included caddies, tea glass holders, sugar-cube boxes and cr­eam jugs. And to save the expense of sugar, some tea sets included a jam basket.

Rückert’s silver-gilt and cloisonné enamel tea service, Moscow, 1899-1908 a teapot, tea caddy and cr­eamer with tiers of lobed teardrop panels with varicoloured stylised flowers and foliage (35,000 - 45,000 GBP Sotheby’s)

See Ruck­ert’s solid silver and cloisonné enamel salt, decorated with foliate enamels on gilded matted ground, set with cab­o­ch­­on emeralds. Moscow, 1908-17.

Craftsmen in Moscow, especially those supervised by master Feodor Rück­ert, became known for their work in the pan-Slavic or neo-Russian style, referring back to C17th motifs of folk art. See, for example, silver-gilt and enamel kovshs-wine ladles retailed by Faber­gé, which inc­or­­porated enamel reproductions by Russ­ian artists.

The opulent lifestyle of Russia’s upper classes ended with the political upheavals of the early C20th. Heaps of pre­cious silver pieces seized from silversmiths, jewellers, weal­thy merch­ants, aristocrats and the Russian Imperial Family were melt­ed. Some were sold internationally for cash, or smug­gled out by westerners. Of­­ten on con­vent­­ional shapes, Rückert and his silver­sm­iths created an explos­ion of col­our, attained through the historic use of cl­oisonné enamel in which tiny metal lines were soldered to the surface then filled with glass powders in various colours and fired to a high gl­oss fin­ish. The result was a sp­ectacular ev­ocation of the C17th or­ig­inals. But far from mere copies, Rück­erts designs employed natural­is­t­ic or abst­r­act motifs in a modern adaptation of an earlier era.

Until 1908, Rückert’s work drew on Russian historical design preced­ents especially C17th Russian ornament. But after 1908 his work re­f­lected the influence of the emerging Neo-Russian style, which combin­ed Art Nouveau with Russian vernacular forms. Promoted by Stroganov Institute Design School, this Russian visual voc­­abulary spread across the decorative arts. He often com­bin­ed min­iatures based on Russian history th­emes with new arab­esque motifs.

Rückert’s designs were rooted in the C19th fas­­cination with national identity and culminating in the 1913 anniversary celeb­rat­ions of the Romanov Dyn­asty. But when WWI started in 1914, the Rückert family was being persecuted as a Foreign Enemy. Although the family st­rongly split from Germany and wrote to Nicholas II pl­eading for protection, they were treated as prison­ers of war and exiled. From 1915 any mention of Rüc­k­ert’s workshop in the Mos­cow Dir­­­­ec­t­­ory of Trade ended. Rückert died in Moscow in 1917.

 silver and cloisonné enamel bowl with bear heads handles, Moscow, 1908-17. 

Modern Russia
The 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union and then the rise of a weal­thy oligarchy inspired growing national­ism, an interest in art his­tory and a new generation of col­l­ectors. Fortunately Rückert’s timeless, Neo-Russian style withstood the chaos of the Russian Revol­ution and his works remained popular in the mod­ern mark­et. A record was established Nov 2018: an enamelled kovsh, £490,000.