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Stroganoff Plate

Stroganoff Plate

The original Stroganoff silver gilt plate (probably a paten), which has been variously dated between the sixth and ninth centuries, reportedly was found in 1867 in the Berezoff Islands in Siberia. Measuring six inches in diameter, it represents two angels to either side of a jeweled cross, fixed on a starry globe resting upon ground from which flow the four rivers of Paradise. The plate entered the private collection of Count Grigorij Sergeevich Stroganoff (1829–1910), a connoisseur and collector of paintings and objects of various cultures. Stroganoff had homes in Rome, Paris, and Saint Petersburg. The plate has been in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (inv. ω 209), since 1911.

 

Robert S. Nelson, “Private Passions Made Public: The Beginnings of the Bliss Collection,” in Sacred Art, Secular Context: Objects of Art from the Byzantine Collection of Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., Accompanied by American Paintings from the Collection of Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss, ed. Asen Kirin (Athens: Georgia Museum of Art, 2005), 46.

Vera N. Zalesskaya, “Plate with Angels Flanking Cross,” in Sinai, Byzantium, Russia: Orthodox Art from the Sixth to the Twentieth Century, ed. Yuri A. Platnitsky, Oriana Baddeley, Earleen Brunner, and Marlia Mundell Mango (London: Saint Catherine Foundation, 2000), 51–52, no. B6.