CABINET CUP
Silver, agate
H. 2¾ inches • Diam. at lip 1⅞ inch
 
MAKER: Julius Alexandrovich Rappoport

DATE: Prior to 1899

PLACE: St. Petersburg
 
MARKS OR SIGNATURES: On the façade of one leg: I.P., in Cyrillic, in a rectangular punch; 88, crossed anchors and vertical scepter in an elliptical punch.
 
PROVENANCE: Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna (Mme. Nicholai Kulikovsky) to her son Guri Kulikovsky-Romanov to his second wife, Asanta Tamara Gagarina Kulikovsky-Romanov (until 1991–1992)

Paul C. Byington, Ontario, Canada (until 2008)
 
Julius Rappoport (1851–1917) was Fabergé’s head silversmith in St. Petersburg, where he maintained an independently housed workshop at 65 Ekatarinski Canal even after Fabergé moved his workmaster staff to enlarged quarters at 24 Bolshaya Morskaya in 1900.
 
Such small decorative cups had been fashionable in aristocratic circles since the time of Louis XVI of France (r. 1774–1792), and this cabinet cup is in the late Louis XVI style. The ringed Vitruvian scroll-decorated frames and the acanthus leaf-surmounted paw feet are direct translations from the neoclassical Louis XVI mode.
 
Rappoport was well versed in the Louis XVI and First Empire styles, which remained popular with Fabergé’s clients—particularly those in St. Petersburg—until the firm’s forced closing in 1918.
Although Rappoport’s atelier was responsible for the creation of the silver stand, it would not have produced the agate cup. That would have been supplied by an outside shop.
 
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