Curator of the collection

Paperweight Call from the East (inscription in the half-sphere: “Arise ye workers from your slumbers!”). Leningrad Lomonosov Porcelain Factory. Leningrad. 1920 model from 1922. Overglaze paintwork and gilding on porcelain. Height: 17.2 cm. Blue hand-painted overglaze mark: sickle, hammer, part of a gear, and year (1922). Hand-painted overglaze marks: “1922” and “91/3.”

Paperweight Call from the East (inscription in the half-sphere: “Arise ye workers from your slumbers!”). Leningrad Lomonosov Porcelain Factory. Leningrad. 1920 model from 1922. Overglaze paintwork and gilding on porcelain. Height: 17.2 cm. Blue hand-painted overglaze mark: sickle, hammer, part of a gear, and year (1922). Hand-painted overglaze marks: “1922” and “91/3.”

Natalia Danko

Natalia Danko

Natalia Danko was born in 1892 in Tiflis in a family of railway workers—Yakov and Olga Danko. From 1900—1902, she studied at the Stroganov Art Institute in Moscow. Then she studied at various private studios. From 1906 through 1908, she studied under Hjalmar Jaanson in Vilnius. From 1906 to 1908, she studied in St. Petersburg in the studios of Leonid Sherwood and Vasily Kuznetsov. From 1909 to 1914, she worked chiefly in St. Petersburg, where she created sculptural decorations for buildings by architects Vladimir Shchuko, Ivan Fomin, and others. In 1911, she created sculptural decorations for exhibitions in Rome and Turin. Beginning in 1914, she began working with Vasily Kuznetsov in the sculpture studio of the Imperial Porcelain Factory in Petrograd. In 1919, she became the head of the factory’s sculpture department. Natalia Danko created more than 300 sculptural works. Her most famous one include Red Army Soldier, Worker Embroidering Banner, Sailor (1919), Policewoman (1920), Freight Handlers, Fortune Teller, Hunger, Chess (1922), Worker, Woman with Sheaf, and others. She also created the portrait figurines Nijinsky, Fyodorova the Second, Anna Akhmatova, and Meyerhold (1935). Many early works were painted by Natalia’s sister, Elena Danko. During World War II, Natalia Danko was in Blockade Leningrad. At the end of February 1942, she was evacuated to Irbit with her mother and sister. Her mother and sister died from the effects of exhaustion along the way. Natalia Danko herself died 18 March 1942, soon after arriving in Irbit.