The vase in the Fabergé Museum collection was made in 1859. According to archival documents, it was in the list of “Gifts for Christmas 1859” and it was priced at 3,000 rubles. The vase was intended as a valuable gift to Grand Duke Konstantin Niikolaevich and Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna from Emperor Alexander II. The vase was painted by the Imperial Porcelain Factory’s accomplished floral painter F. Krasovsky. The vase itself, which was also made at the factory, is decorated with an ornament that recreates the texture of sharkskin. It is part of a set with an interior vase that is now held in the vaults of the Hermitage Museum.
Painting flowers and fruits was the specialty of the Krasovsky dynasty of artists at the Imperial Porcelain Factory. They painted from nature, from prints or from the paintings of 17th-century Dutch artists. Praise of their work from contemporaries has survived: “...one can assert that no one has ever depicted living flowers on porcelain with greater perfection than the Krasovsky family.” Konstantin Krasovsky created many watercolor sketches of flowers for porcelain paintings. He received orders of merit and silver and gold medals on multiple occasions for his work. Fyodor Krasovsky, his uncle, was famously regarded as an unmatched master of floral arrangements at the Imperial Porcelain Factory in the mid and late 19th century. He was succeeded by his many students, the best of whom was his nephew Konstantin.