Cruet frame (one of a pair)

The cruets formed part of an extensive silver service acquired in 1817 by the Russian nobleman Count Nicholas Demidoff (1773–1828), scion of a family of art collectors who amassed their wealth through an industrial and mining empire based in the Ural Mountains. As recently as 1835 the discovery on their estate of rich seams of malachite prodigiously added to the luxury and display at their extravagantly furnished residences and villas in Saint Petersburg and Paris as well as at the Villa San Donato near Florence. One of the masterpieces at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Demidoff Malachite Vase made in 1817 in Paris by Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751–1834), was originally displayed in the Malachite Salon at San Donato (44.152a, b) as was the Demidoff Table made in 1845 by Lorenzo Bartolini (03.11a–d).

The applied coat of arms on the stands is that of Alfred de la Chapelle (1830–1914) and was added after the service was acquired by the de la Chapelle family between 1859 and 1867.