Soup plate from Catherine Percy-French Manor

An original and extremely rare plate in good collector's condition. Porcelain, decal. The diameter is 240 mm. Judging by the coat of arms in the upper part, it was part of the dining service of the estate of one of the richest and most amazing women of pre—revolutionary Russia - Ekaterina Maximillianovna Percy-French. Minor scratches, a small chip on the rim. Guarantee of authenticity.

Ekaterina Maximilianovna Percy-French (Kathleen Emily Sophie Alexandra Percy ffrench, 1864, Paris — January 1, 1938, Harbin) was a Russian-Irish philanthropist, a wealthy landowner of the Simbirsk province. The owner of a medieval tower house in Monivey.

 The daughter of the hereditary Simbirsk noblewoman Sophia Alexandrovna Kindyakova (1832-1902) from her marriage (from April 17, 1863) to the Irish nobleman Robert Maximilian Percy-French (1833-1896). Their family life was not long. Nervous and unbalanced by nature, Sofia Alexandrovna (she was addicted to morphine) left her husband for good a few years later. After the divorce of her parents, Ekaterina and her mother lived in Simbirsk in the house of her rich grandfather, Colonel Alexander Lvovich Kindyakov (1805-1884; nephew of P. V. Kindyakov). Later, she spent several years in Europe with her father, studied at a closed aristocratic boarding school in England. She was fluent in English, French and German.

The abolition of serfdom (1861) had a negative impact on the financial situation of the Kindyakovs. In 1884, after the death of Alexander Lvovich, Sophia Alexandrovna took possession of the estate, who, not wanting to delve into economic problems, began recklessly burning through the inheritance she received. When Catherine turned 21, she went to Paris to live with her father and entered the Sorbonne. She called the sole management of the Kindyakov estate a condition for her return. Her family gave in, and soon Catherine returned to Russia.

In 1896, Catherine's father, Maximilian Percy-French, died, bequeathed Monivey Castle and a house in London to his only daughter. In 1899, after the death of a childless great-aunt, she inherited a manor in Terenga, a glass factory in Russian Temryazan, a watermill and huge plots of land in Syzran and Sengileevsky counties. Thus, at the beginning of the XX century, Percy-French became perhaps the largest landowner in the Simbirsk province. Her fortune was estimated at 50 million rubles. Ekaterina Maximilianovna's "economy" included highly productive Bestuzhevsky cattle, Karakul sheep, a stud farm (in the village of Golovino), a sewing studio, and a fruit greenhouse.

In 1903, she bought one of the prestigious houses in Simbirsk on Moskovskaya Street (now Lenin Street, 61), in which she created an art gallery, which later became the basis of an art museum, and in 1912 she commissioned the Simbirsk architect Shode to design a gazebo, which she installed as a monument to the writer Goncharov, who once stayed at their estate in the village of Kindyakovka. Since 1906, Percy-French headed the Simbirsk Society of Christian Charity, took care of the community of Red Cross sisters, took an active part in the opening and maintenance of hospitals, soup kitchens and food distribution points in the province, and patronized the arts. She became an honorary trustee of the Simbirsk Women's Gymnasium, established by T. N. Yakubovich ("Yakubovich Gymnasium").

The entire Vinnovskaya grove, in which her estate was located, was dug in by a moat and an earthen rampart, faint traces of which are still preserved in places today. It was strictly forbidden for anyone to cross this border. This was followed by mounted Circassians with whips. Citizens were allowed to visit the Vinnovskaya grove only with special tickets, which were sold in the Gelda store located on Dvortsovaya Street, near its intersection with Goncharova Street. Strict rules were established for visitors to the grove: do not tear flowers, do not break bushes and trees, do not light bonfires, etc. Violation of these rules entailed blows with a Circassian whip.

In Simbirsk, her estate was managed by Pyotr Mikhailovich von Bradke, with whom she lived in a civil marriage. She built him a small stone house on Pokrovskaya Street (now L. Tolstoy Street) a little below von Stempel's house. Von Bradke, the son of a gendarme general, was practically the owner of the Percy French estate in the Vinnov Grove.

The revolution came to Simbirsk in 1918. In a letter to friends, Ekaterina Maximilianovna described what was happening in this way: "Heavenly powers! This is not a revolution in the full sense of the word. The barbarians, and especially their younger generation, attacked my estates, the fruits of my many years of work and in three days destroyed the temple of creation, art, science and nobility, which will take three centuries to restore, and even then it is unlikely that it will be possible to resurrect everything in its former splendor." Thus, the Percy-French estate was completely looted, and the hostess herself ended up in prison, first in Simbirsk, then in Moscow. "The unbearable stuffiness reminded me of the catacombs in Venice. The food consisted of fetid herring and rotten cabbage. I felt sick when I entered the cell. The noise was indescribable both day and night. I was sick with hunger. I haven't been able to get enough sleep for three months. And they released me without any explanations or apologies. It was simply announced to me that the sent material did not provide sufficient grounds for my arrest. So, three months later, I found myself on the street. Without a penny of money."

Percy-French was seen with a canister on Simbirsk Street. "She must have been going to get milk then," they said. Burmistrov said that in the Simbirsk newspaper of that time it was printed that the former large landowner Percy-French carried office packages around the city as a messenger for the Volga-Bugulminskaya railway administration. Thus, the "mistress" became proletarian, became a worker. But this, apparently, was a short episode of her life.

Catherine Percy-French died in Harbin on January 1, 1938 at the age of 74. According to the will, she was buried in the family tomb in Monivey next to her father's grave. She bequeathed the estate itself to the Irish nation. With her death, the Simbirsk branch of the Kindyakov noble family ended.

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