Silver coffee pot from the Imperial household of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna

Description

St. Petersburg 1746, 80 zolotnik silver, Russian court inventory no. 640 engraved and stamped, stipple engraved in Cyrillic ZOL for Tikhon Zolotarev
25cm h, 1010g

Engraved and stamped inventory numbers as we see them here are found on most silver that once belonged to the Russian Imperial court. Three stipple engraved Cyrillic letters next to them usually indicate the palace or service to which they belong. In this case however the letters ZOL stand for Тихон Золотарев (Tikhon Zolotarev), who it seems was an administrator in charge of the Empress’s silver (I would like to thank Ms Ludmila Shanskaya of the Kremlin Museum for this information, kindly transmitted to me via Ms Tatiana Muntyan)