Tour Imperial Porcelain Factory Inside Visit + Master Class

It is the first porcelain factory in Russia and the third oldest one in Europe. Imperial Porcelain Factory was founded by the order of Peter the Great’s daughter Elisabeth in 1744 in Saint-Petersburg. During the first years of its existence only small goods like snuffboxes were manufactured. From 1756 the kiln was built and they started to produce items of a larger size.

Porcelain was invented in China in the seventh century. All kings, tzars and emperors wanted to decorate their palaces with porcelain curiosities. Peter the Great preferred to order porcelain in China. It was kept for prestige purposes in special rooms together with other precious things. Only several decades later it was used for table setting.

One of the ways to open the secret was the painted silk depicting twenty-two operations of making porcelain that was bought in China. It showed this process from the very beginning to the end, but it didn’t help. This silk still covers the walls of the state bedroom in Grand Palace in Peterhof. The secret of making porcelain was disclosed only at the beginning of the 17th century in Europe. The first European Porcelain Factory that was founded in Dresden in 1710 was Maison factory. Russia ordered a lot of porcelain pieces from this European factory as well as from Sevres Porcelain Factory. Nowadays you can admire porcelain sets of these factories within different guided tours St Petersburg in the former Imperial palaces, for example, such as Grand Peterhof Palace.

In 1844 for the anniversary of Imperial Porcelain Factory the museum was founded here in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Only during the reign of Alexander III the factory started to produce items doubled: one – for the imperial court, the other -for the museum.

In 1918 the factory was nationalized by Bolsheviks. It started to produce agitation porcelain.

Nowadays it produces a wide range of goods: from memorable gifts to banquet porcelain sets of presidential level. We are offering you the tours with private tour guides of St Petersburg to Imperial Porcelain factory and to take part in a porcelain painting workshop. As a result you may keep your painted work as a souvenir! Book more than one tour with us to get a great discount!

Please have a look at our guests’ testimonials.

The price includes a professional guide and a professional driver with a comfortable air-conditioned car or mini-bus for four hours, guided tour in a factory and taking part in a porcelain painting workshop for everyone.

Group size (number of people). Price per person.