GRACHEV SET OF TWELVE SILVER GILT SALT CELLARS AND SILVER SPOONS Grachev Brothers, Supplier to the Court of His Imperial Majesty, Saint Petersburg, 1899-1908
Лот 331
2 5003 000
silver
Marks: firm’s mark in Cyrillic ‘Br Grachevy’ (on the underside of the salt cellars), 84 silver standard with head in kokoshnik turning left, Cyrillic initials ‘BgR’ (on the spoons)
Spoons : 7cm, 5.8 gr. (each
Salt cellars : 3 x 4.3 cm, 36.8 gr (each)
gross weight: approximately 511 gr.
Provenance:
Collection of Adolf Rothstein (1858–1904), Russian banker and right-hand man to the Nicholas II’s minister of finance Sergei Witte
Thence by descent to the present day, Europe
The following lots are from the collection of Adolf Rothstein (1858-1904), one of the most powerful Russian bankers of the turn of the twentieth century, and right-hand man to the minister of finance Sergei Witte. Acquired when they were new, they have descended directly to his great-grandson, and after more than a century in the same family are now offered for auction for the first time.
Adolf Rothstein was born in humble circumstances in Berlin but showed a precocious talent for financial affairs at a young age. He first worked for a German bank, but soon moved to Russia where he made a brilliant career, rising to become the director and general manager of two enormous private Russian banks: the International Commercial Bank in St. Petersburg, and the Russo-Chinese Bank which had branches in Siberia, Manchuria, China and Japan.
In the 1890s he had became close to Sergei Witte, Nicholas II’s Minister of Finance, and was instrumental in attracting foreign bank loans to Russia, specifically for the development of business and infrastructure in Russia’s Far East. A naturalised subject of the Tsar, he was awarded the Order of Saint Vladimir, and was the first man of Jewish faith to be admitted to the ranks of the hereditary nobility of the Empire.
In 1900, he travelled to New York, probably – although he denied it - to arrange a loan from American banks. This was partially to cover debts incurred from the massive costs of the Trans-Siberian Railroad which was still under construction and in which Rothstein played a critical role. He was received in New York with great honours and was the subject of several articles in the New York Times. The Boxer rebellion in China was at its height, and Rothstein was repeatedly questioned about it and what outcome he predicted, and also on Russia’s and China’s relations with Japan. On these matters he sounded optimistic and sought to reassure the American public that things would soon settle down.
On the 13th June 1900, the New York Times wrote: “Mr. A. Rothstein, whose conferences this week with the bankers of Wall Street have aroused much interest, is one of the best known financiers of the Russian Empire....Mr. Rothstein is in the prime of his life, and has a personality that is very attractive. He is of very unassuming manners. He speaks English fluently and is very earnest when engaged in conversation….”
On the 19th of June, the same newspaper proclaimed, under the headline “Side Lights on Mr. Rothstein, the Great Russian banker who is in New York” “It is doubtful that one man in a thousand is aware of the presence in this country of one of the half dozen most influential and important men in the Russian Empire, or if they have caught sight of his name amongst the recent arrivals they are aware of the tremendous extent of his power. The mere announcement that M. Rothstein, of the Imperial Bank of Russia, is conferring with financiers in New York, with the object of establishing a Muscovite bank in the United States, will have attracted but little attention save on the part of the financiers, but the general public will be interested to know that he is the alter ego of Count de Witte, the celebrated Minister of Finance of the Czar, and fills much the same position toward the Count as the Capuchin monk, Father Joseph, popularly known as the "Grey Eminence," occupied toward the great Cardinal Richelieu. Count Witte does nothing whatsoever without the advice and counsel of Rothstein, and inasmuch as Count Witte is far and away the most powerful of all Russian statesmen, holding the purse strings of the Empire, and exercising an influence over every branch of the Imperial Administration, the importance of Herr Rothstein will be readily appreciated…”
But Russia was heading into a troubled decade, troubles which began precisely in the Far East. In 1904 Rothstein left St. Petersburg to visit his family in Berlin; no sooner had he arrived than he heard the news of the outbreak of war between Russia and Japan. He immediately returned to Saint Petersburg, sold all his Russian assets and gave them over to the Imperial Crown. He then returned to Berlin, contracted Spanish flu, and died very quickly and suddenly at the age of 46.
His widow was the well-known actress Eugenie Legrenzi, born in Bohemia of Italian descent, and ten years younger than her husband. After her husband’s death she left St. Petersburg with their two young children, first for the fashionable spa town of Bad Ischl in Austria, where Rothstein had built a holiday villa (the Villa Rothstein, which still stands to this day) and eventually to Graz where she had family. Of the two children, one was also carried away by Spanish flu; the other is the grandmother of the present vendor.
Ivan Samarine