A Soviet porcelain group "Guernica: Spanish Woman and Child"...

A Soviet porcelain group "Guernica: Spanish Woman and Child"

Lomonosov State Porcelain Manufactory, Leningrad, 1936

After a design by Kazimir Ryzhov, stamped dark green factory mark.

H: 9 1/8 in.

PROVENANCE:

Ode to Joy Collection, Connecticut.

This model is of critical political importance as it shows the support of the Soviet Union for the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War. The republicans had a loose alliance with communists and falangists, and this figurine points to the USSR's leanings in the foreign conflict, showing solidarity with their communist brothers in the west.

This model first appeared in the 1938 album devoted to the Lomonosov Factory with an introduction by Elena Danko. However, it was originally produced in color; see Khudozhestvennyi farfor, Leningrad, 1938, n.p.; for comparison, see E. Sametskaia, Sovetskii agitatsionnyi farfor, Moscow, 2004, p. 279.