Paintings on porcelain vases at Hillwood. (Hillwood Museum & Gardens).

In the course of the nineteenth century the Russian Imperial Porcelain Factory in Saint Petersburg produced a remarkable number of vases, many decorated with copies of old master or popular nineteenth-century paintings. The factory artists increasingly used the central section of the vase as an easel for reproducing favorite paintings, instead of creating original ornament. Production reached its height during the reign of Nicholas I, when, along with table services, vases were a mainstay of the factory. They were used not only to decorate the many palaces, mansions, and pavilions that were being constructed in the still relatively new city of Saint Petersburg, but they ...