Imperial Porcelain (LFZ)

Founded in St Petersburg in 1744 by decree of Empress Elizabeth, the Imperial Porcelain Factory is the oldest in Russia and the third oldest in Europe. Dmitry Vinogradov worked out his own porcelain formula independently of Meissen — a scientific feat he paid for with his life's freedom. The factory served the court exclusively; its wares from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are museum property in all but a few lucky private collections.

After 1917 the factory became the State (later Lomonosov) Porcelain Factory — LFZ — and produced both propaganda porcelain, now fiercely collected, and the everyday classics of the Soviet table. The cobalt net pattern of 1944, drawn by Anna Yatskevich, won gold in Brussels in 1958 and remains the factory's signature.