An Important Soviet porcelain group "Monumental Composition In Honour...

An Important Soviet porcelain group "Monumental Composition In Honour of Stalin's 70th Birthday"

Baranovskii Manufactory, Baranovka, 1949

After a design by Dmitrii Goch, with incised numbers 207 and 49, otherwise apparently unmarked.

H: 32 in.

PROVENANCE:

Ode to Joy Collection, Connecticut.

Exhibited
Pushkin Museum, no. 170

Literature
Oda k Radosti/Ode to Joy, p. 403, illus. 331, cat. no. 342

The cult of the leadership of Soviet Josef Stalin (1879-1953) came to its apex with the events and commissions surrounding the leader's 70th birthday in 1949. Massive celebrations were planned as far away as Beijing, and monuments erected in Prague and other cities in the Soviet sphere of influence. The offered lot, created by the Baranovskii manufactory in Baranovka (Ukraine) followed this 'monumental' theme, depicting the 'Great Leader' supported by workers, peasants, and soldiers. The celebration was the last of these large scale honorific events, as Stalin died a year before his 75th birthday, and his cult began to be discouraged soon after his death.