Egg made of clay

This object is an extreme rarity. It was created by Ignacy Julian Ceyzik, a very talented artist-ceramicist, whose works, as well as colourful life and vigorous temperament, were often mentioned in the 19th c. memoirs. At the turn of the 18th c. he attended the university in Vilnius. His skills in forgery (first of theatre tickets, then money)influenced his whole life. In order to escape imprisonment he had to change the place of residence; he fled from Lithuania to Vienna, from there under an assumed name he moved to Podolia, but in 1828 was finally deported to Siberia. In Tobolsk his talents of a skilled ceramicist saved him from penal servitude, but when he was caught redhanded forging money again he was sentenced to hard labour in the mines in Akatua in 1846. After several years he obtained a permission to settle down near Verknoudinsk and from 1857 in Irkutsk.