The porcelain factory of Francis Gardner in Verbilki was the first and largest private enterprise of its kind, manufacturing products that were on par with those of the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory. The factory employed top-class craftsmen and artists, including experts from Meissen.

The collection of Verbilki figurines depicting everyday scenes was called “Gardner’s biscuit”. These were the first items to be produced of “ringing” porcelain. Its composition included high-quality Glukhov clay saturated with iron oxide. Such clay was extracted in Chernihiv Governorate and also taken medicinally. Later, it was used by all private porcelain factories.

The biscuit figurine “Sbiten Seller” exists in several versions which differ in their color palette, artistic design, and décor. The one from the museum’s collection belongs to the later period of the Gardner factory and is in keeping with the factory’s best traditions. After a single firing, unglazed porcelain is covered with matte polychrome painting. The figurine is distinguished by meticulous detailing. In addition to a teapot with sbiten — a Russian hot beverage, the merchant holds strings of ring-shaped rolls — a dessert traditionally served with sbiten. A wooden tray with cups is fixed on the man’s bast belt.

As a rule, such figurines were created based on the works of graphic artists who depicted scenes of everyday life. The most prominent among them were Ignaty Shchedrovsky, Kapiton Zelentsov, and Alexander Orlovsky.

Alexander Orlovsky was a battle and genre painter of Polish descent. Having studied under the French painter Jean-Pierre Norblin de La Gourdaine, he came to St. Petersburg in 1802. There his talent was highly appreciated by Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich. Orlovsky lived at his court and soon earned fame as a graphic artist and caricaturist who was able to capture, convey, and sometimes exaggerate the most distinctive features of the model. The artist made many of his drawings into lithographs.

Nikolay Wrangel described the artist as “a curious eccentric”, “the leading artist of everyday life”, “a mocking caricaturist” and “an amusing oddball”. Orlovsky was the one who created the portrait of a sbiten seller which was used to design the displayed figurine.