die Tsarina sits astride her horse which is performing a courbette, the Tsarina and the horse turns their heads to the left, in her right hand she holds a marshal’s stick, in her left the reins, she is wearing the uniform of a colonel of the regiment of the Preobraschenski Guard with high black bucket-top boots, a black tricorn and a white coat trimmed with passements, on her breast she is wearing the star of the Grand Cross of the St Andrew Order, with the blue sash of the Order diagonally over her chest, her grey horse is decorated with gilt strings of beads, to one side her Moorish servant runs adoringly, oval base covered with colourful flowers and floral stems, height 24 cm, length 24 cm, the Moor’s stick has broken off, Meissen, underglaze blue sword mark circa 1970, model no. 73108, impress no. 109, model by J. J. Kändler after 1743, very rare model with attendant Moorish servant (Ru)

Lit.: Meissen für die Zaren, Porzellan als Mittel sächsisch-russischer Politik im 18. Jh., Munich 2004, p. 57, cat. no. 46; this military dress was deliberately chosen for this visual representation of the Tsarina, since it was, above all, the Preobraschenski Regiment which had supported Elisabeth Petrovna in December 1741 in her putsch against Tsarina Anna Ivanovna and had assisted her in attaining the Imperial Crown. Kändler executed this group after a copy of the painting by Georg Christoph Grooth, 1716-1749, now in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, which was brought for this purpose to Meissen, cat. no. 47, portrait of Tsarina Elisabeth Petrovna on horseback, oil on canvas by Georg Christoph Grooth, 1743;