A SILVER-GILT AND PLIQUE-À-JOUR ENAMEL IMPERIAL PRESENTATION TANKARD

Pavel Ovchinnikov with Imperial Warrant, Moscow, circa 1889

Footnotes

Provenance
Presented by Grand Duke Georgii Aleksandrovich (1871-99) to William Cody ['Buffalo Bill'] (1846-1917), according to inscription on base.

Architectural in form and featuring brightly coloured filigree enamel panels, granulation and interlacing strapwork, the current tankard is an adaptation of the Turkish seventeenth century prototype featured in the Drevnosti Gosudarstva Rossiiskogo (Antiquities of the Russian State), compiled by Fedor Solntsev in 1850s and instantly adopted by Russian silversmiths as their favourite source of the artistic inspiration. The firm of Pavel Ovchinnikov made several identical tankards, a few of which were acquired by the Imperial Cabinet and members of the Romanov family to be used as diplomatic gifts and presentation pieces. In 1897, during the official visit of the French President Félix Faure to Saint Petersburg, one of the officers of the French squadron received a very similar tankard as an official gift. (Fig 1). In 1889 an identical tankard was presented to an anonymous official by G. Netchaev-Maltsov (Sotheby's, Geneva, 13-15 November 1995, lot 446).

The Hillwood Museum and Gardens in Washington, DC has in its collection another example identical to the current tankard but without an inscription identifying the occasion for which the gift may have been presented. In addition to their traditional shape and décor, each tankard was decorated with plique-à-jour panels depicting the Russian Imperial Eagles amidst floral fields. The presence of the Imperial symbols further underscored the importance of such gifts as an official expression of friendship and appreciation. Among this group of presentation tankards, the current example stands out as the most historically significant. According to the inscription, Grand Duke Georgii Aleksandrovich presented it to William Cody, one of the most famous and popular Americans of the late 19th century.

William Cody (1846-1917), who earned his nickname 'Buffalo Bill' by hunting 4,280 buffalo in eighteen months, was a soldier during the Civil War, a scout, a Pony Express rider, an invaluable tracker and experienced gunman, who at the end of his life had come to symbolize the American frontier and the nation's spirit of adventure. Cody's frontier experience and positive public image was particularly helpful during official visits of foreign dignitaries to the Western territories. During the highly publicised visit of Grand Duke Aleksei Aleksandrovich to the USA in 1871-1872, Cody was instrumental in organising a hunting adventure on a scale that surpassed anything that the Russian Grand Duke, an experienced hunter and sportsman himself, had experienced before. When the Grand Duke Aleksei, the third son of Tsar Alexander II, arrived at the hunting camp in Nevada, 'Buffalo Bill' was waiting mounted on a splendid horse. Over six feet tall, Cody cut an impressive figure in his spangled buckskin suit, a coat trimmed with fur, and a black slouch hat. Cody's leadership and assistance during the hunt was later kindly acknowledged by the Grand Duke who presented Buffalo Bill with gifts that are now part of the collection at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, USA. It was probably with the encouragement and at the recommendation of his royal uncle that twenty years later, while vacationing in Paris, Grand Duke Georgii met William Cody.

In the summer of 1889, William Cody was on his second tour of Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, a highly successful circus-like attraction that included horseback parades, re-enactments of famous Civil War battles, Indian attacks on wagon trains, and stage coach races. The show was enormously popular and propelled Cody to worldwide fame. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, Russian Grand Duke Michael, and the King of Denmark were among the guests who attended the show during the tour of England two year earlier. In 1889 the Wild West show became the main attraction of the Paris Exposition Universelle and a 'must see' venue for many foreign visitors flocking to the French capitol that summer. Grand Duke Georgii Aleksandrovich (1871-99), the son of Emperor Alexander III and the brother of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, arrived in Paris on August 26 for a few days of sightseeing. Very bright and capable, he was seen by many of his contemporaries as 'intellectual and magnanimous, with an engaging personality', and 'the one who could have become a strong and popular tsar' (1). Sadly, in the early 1890s Grand Duke Georgii was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent most of his time travelling in pursuit of the proper medical treatments, eventually settling in the small town of Abas-Tuman in the Caucasus. Two days after his arrival in Paris the Grand Duke noted in his dairy: 'We had visited the Exposition today. Afterwards we went to see Buffalo Bill [show]. It was most interesting' (2). The scale of the performance and larger than life personality of its founder must have left an unforgettable impression on the eighteen year old Grand Duke, who arranged to have this very special gift delivered to William Cody on his behalf.

1. Suzanne Massie, 'A Royal Visit: The Grand Duke Alexis in the United States,' in The Tsar and the President, Alexander II and Abraham Lincoln Liberator and Emancipator, the American–Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation, 2008, p. 62.
2. The Diaries of Grand Duke Georgii Aleksandrovich, State Archive of the Russian Federation, fund 675, unit 1, file 6, 16/28 of August 1889.

We would like to thank Larisa Kriachkova, Chief Curator of Archival Depository of the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the staff of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center for their research assistance.