Plate from the Husk Service

Commissioned from Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) by Catherine II, Empress of Russia (1729-1796), 1770;

Offered for sale by the Soviet government, Moscow, after 1917-1931 [1];

Purchased by Mr. Arne (1896-1940) and Mrs. Jeanne (1899-1986) Solanko, Finland and New York, 1931-1956 [2];

Purchased from Jeanne Solanko by Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, Ltd., Staffordshire, England, 1956-1963;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1963.

NOTES:

[1] Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolshevik government confiscated and sold the private property of the former imperial family, the aristocracy, and the church in an effort to fund a planned industrialization. Works of art were sold at auctions in Berlin and in state-controlled shops and warehouses in Moscow and St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), among other places.

[2] According to a pamphlet on the plate’s provenance printed by Josiah Wedgwood & Sons about 1963, NAMA Registration file: “The pieces in the Husk service came to us from Mrs. Arne Solanko whose husband was the Counsellor of the Legation of Finland to Russia about 1930. The service was bought by Mr. and Mrs. Solanko in Moscow in 1931 from the Soviet controlled antique stores operated when the palaces were stripped of their treasures.” See also, Robin Reilly and George Savage, The Dictionary of Wedgwood (Woodbridge, England: The Antique Collectors' Club Ltd., 1980): 194.