Centrepiece

The ensemble is made up of three pieces. In the centre, an allegorical scene depicting Bacchus and Love, is represented by two children, one of them winged, playing on a rocaille style platform. The smaller flanking figures depict the Awakening of Love, in the form a little girl watching a pair of doves, perched on a bed of roses, while the other, the 'Birth of Comedy', has a small girl playing castanets, seated by a mask, a tambourine and a bunch of grapes.

The Empress Elizabeth of Russia commissioned this purely ornamental centrepiece, in 1760, as a gift for her uncle, General Soltikov. Completed in 1766, after the death of the monarch, it was acquired by Czar Alexander III, along with other pieces from the Soltikov Service, and became part of the Russian Imperial Services.