Comprising: teapot, sugar bowl, cream jug, six teaspoons, sugar sifter spoon, sugar tongs and lemon fork in wood box with initialled brass plate, lined in dark red silk printed in gold with Imperial Warrant and retailer’s details of Pavel Ovchinnikov, Moscow, the pieces decorated in niello with geometric scrolling foliage on textured ground and incorporating oval architectural panels of Muscovite views and monogram RTS, the teapot with ivory insulators to handle and ivory-mounted finial, the spoons with Muscovite architectural views to backs of bowls and spiral-twist stems, sugar bowl with conforming swing handle
Vasiliy Semenov owned a factory in Moscow which ran from 1852 up until 1918. His works were exhibited at the All-Russian Exhibitions of 1867 and 1882.
For a similarly decorated tea and coffee set by Semenov, see plate 129, Russian Gold and Silverwork 17th-19th Century by Alexander von Solodkoff, Neuchatel and New York, 1981.
