FORGOTTEN in a cupboard for nearly a century, rare remnants from the Romanov years of pre-revolutionary Russia are about to go under the hammer in the Yorkshire Dales.

The three oyster dishes from the famous Imperial Raphael dinner service are coming up for auction at Tennants of Leyburn– and are expected to fetch between £15,000 and £20,000.

In the 1920s, an engineer from a Blackburn firm of boiler manufacturers travelled several times to post-revolutionary Moscow on trade missions.

And his relationship with his Russian counterparts must have been a success as he was bestowed with gifts before returning to his native Lancashire.

The Russian gifts were carefully stowed away in an old oak corner cupboard and lay undisturbed for almost 90 years, until his granddaughter began to research the items and turned to Tennants for advice.

Valuer Steve Stockton came face-to-face with the dishes at a valuation event at Bolton Abbey.

“It is said that you should always expect the unexpected, but sometimes as an antiques valuer, the unexpected is so rare, so beautiful, so unusual and so totally out of context that it simply takes your breath away,” he said.

The Raphael Service was the most opulent service produced by the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg, and took over two decades to complete. Commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II in 1883 for the palace in Tsarskoe Selo, the design of the service was inspired by the classical interior decoration in Raphael’s Loggias in the Vatican.

Also up for sale from the collection are a pair of Russian Imperial wine glasses from the service made for Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, son of Nicholas I, which could fetch £5,000, and a set of six linen napkins bearing the royal cypher of Tsar Nicholas II, valued at up to £2,000.

They will be among the highlights of Tennant’s spring five art sale on March 24 and 25.