The Russian Empire’s nationalities depicted in porcelain sculptures (PHOTOS)
A series of sculptures dedicated to different ethnicities were made in the early 20th century by order of Tsar Nicholas II.
In the early 20th century, sculptor Pavel Kamensky made more than 140 porcelain figurines about 30 cm high. All of them were hand-painted with glaze and dressed in the national costumes of the peoples living on the territory of the Russian Empire. Some were paired, featuring both male and female of the same ethnicity.
The ‘Peoples of Russia’ was the largest series of the Imperial Porcelain Factory and it was initiated by Nicholas II on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov House. For 10 years, from 1907 to 1917, the emperor was given 3-4 sculptures every year on Christmas Eve.
A little more than 70 statuettes have survived and, today, most of them have been included in the collections of the Hermitage, the Russian Museum and the Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg.
Take a look at some of them below.
Buryat
Samoyed (Samoyedic peoples of Siberia)
Ostyak woman (modern name of this peoples is Khanty)
Tungusic shaman
Bashkir man
Chukchi man
Crimean Tatar woman
‘Velikoross’ ‘[Great Russian’] from Ryazan Province
Maloruss woman [Woman from ‘Small Russia’, modern Ukraine]
Woman from Tula Province
Ainu woman
Woman from Saratov Province
Yakut man
Mingrelian man
Lezgin man
