The bust is not only one of very few to be found but also of unusual proportions: 8" tall, only 3 ½" across the shoulders, with a cubic plinth approx. 2 ½" x 2 ½" x 2 ½". In Silumin alloy, in impeccable condition.

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin was born on 27 January 1826 and died on 10 May 1889. Over the course of his career he held high administrative posts (deputy governor of Ryazan and then of Tver) but is mostly known as the leading Russian satirist of his time. "The sole object of my work", wrote Saltykov-Shchedrin, "was unfailingly to protest against greed, hypocrisy, falsehood, theft, treachery, stupidity of modern Russians". Although a fairly prominent figure in Russian literature and a "politically correct" one from the official Soviet standpoint (due to his criticism of Imperial Russia), Saltykov was an uncommon subject for a bust.