Feodor Rückert (1840–1917), who ran his own workshop in Moscow and actively collaborated with the House of Fabergé, was rightly called an “enamel painter.” He attained fame with his silver artworks in the “original Russian style” of the turn of the 20th century, decorated with polychrome filigree enamel and miniature paintings themed around Russian history and everyday life in centuries past.
A clear example of Rückert’s early period is this writing set made in filigree enamel.Pieces of painted enamel embedded into the floral ornament depict an imperial bodyguard beside a sealed door on the paper organizer and a beautiful maiden seemingly peering through a window on the inkwell. A dragon appears twice in the composition; atop the paperweight and on the tray by the inkwell, seemingly guarding the maiden trapped in the tower. The lid of the two-piece stamp box, as is typical for Rückert’s artworks, is decorated with enamel renderings of two-kopeek and five-kopeek stamps.
The set bears an engraving that reads, “Thomas Ellison from Latham, Alexander and Co, New York”, which tells us that the set was given by representatives of the prominent banking, brokerage and cotton company to the English historian, economist and analyst Thomas Ellison, who published several overviews of the cotton industry in the United States and United Kingdom.