The Charm of Russian Nesting Dolls

 

QUESTION: My introduction to Russian nesting dolls occurred on a trip to Russia. Vendors selling wooden dolls in a variety of sizes and themes seemed to be everywhere. I purchased several sets of dolls and would perhaps like to collect them. When and where did they originate? Are they valuable? And are there different kinds?

ANSWER: Those are all good questions. First, the correct name for your Russian nesting dolls is Matryoshka dolls. And while they’re commonly associated with Russia, they didn’t originate there. 

A professional artist and folk crafts painter named Sergei Malyutin, who worked on the Abramtsevo estate of Savva I. Mamontovas, as a Russian industrialist, made the first sketches of a nesting doll based on a nesting toy featuring the Seven Gods of Fortune  his wife brought home from a visit to Honshu, Japan, in the latter part of the 19th century. However, the Japanese say that it was a Russian monk who first brought the idea of making nesting dolls to Japan.

 Zvyozdochkin carved the first Russian nested doll set in 1890 at the Children's Education Workshop, created to make and sell children’s toys. Mamontov's brother, Anatoly Ivanovich created the Children's Education Workshop to make and sell children's toys. Malyutin painted the doll set which consisted of eight dolls—the outermost of which was a mother dressed in a kerchief and work apron holding a red-combed rooster. The inner dolls were her children, girls and a boy, and the innermost a baby. Each carried items of Russian peasant life—a basket, a sickle, a bowl of porridge, a broom, and a younger sibling in tow. Nestled in the center was a baby swaddled in a patchwork quilt. The toy workshop named her Matryoshka, or “little mother.” When the Children's Education Workshop closed in the late 1890s, the tradition of the matryoshka dolls relocated to Sergiyev Posad, the Russian city known as a toy-making center since the 14th century.

 intended his doll to depict a round-faced peasant girl with beaming eyes. He dressed her in a sarafan—a floor-length traditional Russian peasant jumper dress held up by two straps—and gave her carefully styled slicked-down hair largely hidden under a colorful babushka or bandanna. He placed other figures, either male or female, each smaller then the one before, inside the largest doll, dressing them in kosovorotkas, or Russian blouses fastened on one side, shirts, poddyovkas, or men’s long-waisted coats, and aprons. He planned to have the smallest, innermost doll, traditionally a baby, turned from a single piece of wood.

Each wooden doll contained symbols of fertility. Doll makers considered the largest doll the matriarch of the family, while they referred to the smallest as the “seed,”’ representing the soul. They’re seen as a representation of a chain of mothers carrying on the family legacy through the child in their womb. Dolls soon became a major export as a Russian souvenir. Non-Russian buyers believed they were authentic handmade folk art.

Mamontov's wife presented the doll set at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900, where they won a bronze medal. Soon after, craftsmen in several other Russian towns began making them and shipping them around the world. 

So where did the name for these dolls originate? At the end of 19th century, Matrena was one of the popular female names in Russia. Derived from the Latin root matrena, it means, "mother," “respected lady," or "mother of the family." Placing one figure inside another was also a fitting symbol of fertility and perpetuation. People also referred to these dolls as "babushka dolls," "babushka" meaning "grandmother" or "elderly woman" and also the name of the bandana worn by peasant women at the time.

But matryoshka dolls required a lot of skill to produce. Those who did know how to fashion these dolls kept the process a secret.  

Artisans generally chose linden wood because of its softness, and less often alder or birch. It was important to cut the wood at the right time, when it was neither too dry nor too damp. Each piece went through as many as 15 separate processes. The craftsman created the smallest doll first.

Once he had made the smallest doll, he then moved on to the next figure into which that first doll would fit. He cut a piece of wood to the necessary height, then cut it in half to form a top and bottom section. He worked on the bottom section of the doll first, removing the wood from the inside of both sections of the second doll so that the smaller doll would fit snugly inside. A skilled craftsman didn’t bother to make measurements but relied solely on his experience. Afterwards, he repeated the process, making a slightly larger doll into which the previous ones would fit.

Some people believed that a craftsman carved all the dolls in a set from one piece of wood. Actually, he used a lathe equipped with a balance bar and four heavy two-foot-long distinct types of chisels—a hook, knife, pipe, and spoon—to carve the dolls from multiple pieces of wood, using a set of handmade wooden calipers especially crafted to the size of the doll by a woodcarver. A village blacksmith hand forged these tools from car axles or other salvage. 

The number of dolls held one inside the other varied from 2 to 60. There was no limit to the size of these dolls. When the craftsman finished each doll, he covered it with starchy glue that filled in any hollow areas in its surface. Then he polished the dolls to a smooth finish to enable the painter to spread the paint evenly. After fashioning and finishing the wooden dolls, the craftsman handed it on to a painter who then decorated them in a folksy style.

Much of the artistry was in the painting of each doll. Some were very elaborate. The dolls often followed a theme which could vary from fairy tale characters to Soviet leaders. Originally, doll makers used themes drawn from tradition or fairy tale characters, in keeping with the craft tradition. But since the 20th century, they have embraced a larger range, including flowers, churches, icons, folk tales, family themes, religious subjects, and even Soviet and American political leaders.

Makers of matryoshka dolls often designed them to follow a particular theme. For instance, peasant girls in traditional dress. Originally, they took themes from traditional folk art or fairy tale characters, in keeping with the craft tradition—but since the late 20th century, they have embraced a larger range, including Russian leaders.

Common themes of matryoshkas were floral and related to nature. Christmas, Easter, and others religious subjects were also popular themes. Eventually, the dolls became popular souvenirs for both Russian tourists and visitors from abroad. Artisans created many new styles of nesting dolls to fill this new market. These included animal collections, portraits, and caricatures of famous politicians, musicians, athletes, astronauts, "robots", and popular movie stars.

The craft of making Matryoshka dolls gradually spread from Moscow to other cities and towns, including Semenov, Polkhovskiy Maidan, Vyatka, and Tver. Each locality developed its own style and form of decoration. 

As with other crafts, the Russian Government under Communism strictly controlled doll making and selling. But political changes at the end of the 1980s gave artisans new possibilities and freedoms.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Age of Photography" in the 2023 Holiday Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The Jewelry of Royalty

 

QUESTION: I recently saw an exquisite brooch made by Cartier at a charity antique show. I always associated Cartier with fine watches. Can you tell me more about Cartier and how the company got its start in the jewelry making business?

ANSWER: While most people associate the name Cartier with fine watches, the company actually began repairing fine jewelry and later creating it. 

Louis-François Cartier founded Cartier in Paris in 1847 when he took over the workshop of his master, Adolphe Picard. In 1874, Louis-François' son Alfred Cartier took over the company, but it was Alfred's sons, Louis, Pierre and Jacques, who set up their own design and manufacturing operation and established the brand name worldwide.

Louis ran the Paris branch, moving to the Rue de la Paix in 1899. He was responsible for some of the company's most celebrated designs and exotic orientalist Art Deco jewelry, including the colorful "Tutti Frutti" jewels.

Cartier has had a long history of sales to royalty. King Edward VII of Great Britain referred to Cartier as "the jeweler of kings and the king of jewelers" For his coronation in 1902, Edward VII ordered 27 tiaras and issued a royal warrant to Cartier in 1904. Similar warrants soon followed from the courts of Spain, Portugal, Russia and the House of Orleans.

The firm had always had an illustrious clientele, including Henri and Maurice de Rothschilde, Ira Nelson Morris, Florence Blumenthal, Daisy Fellowes, Mrs. Cole Porter and Barbara Streisand.

The Cartier style was diverse, encompassing fashion accessories, as well as jewelry. It was a style which owed less to the prevailing design trends and more to the global travels and interests of the Cartier brothers and their intrigue with novelty. Their pioneering use of the much stronger platinum instead of silver, as a setting for diamonds made it possible to work in such a thin gauge that the diamonds seem to float in space in an intricate embroidery.

Attention to detail saw even the ring bolt catches studded with minute diamonds, and seed pearls on a tasseled pendant exquisitely graded in size.

But Cartier made its jewelry to be adaptable. One diamond fern spray brooch could also be a long corsage, a necklace or a tiara. A central jeweled motif could be removed from a necklace and placed in a brooch setting which, with a tiny screw-driver, was packaged beneath the velvet of its padded box. Long necklaces, known as sautoirs, sometimes contained pendant watches and could be lengthened or shortened, even turned into Brooches were made to be divided, if desired, for wearing on each shoulder.

Pierre Cartier established the New York City branch in 1909, moving in 1917 to 653 Fifth Avenue, the Neo-Renaissance mansion of Morton Freeman Plant (son of railroad tycoon Henry B. Plant) and designed by architect C.P.H. Gilbert. Cartier bought it from the Plants in exchange for $100 in cash and a double-stranded natural pearl necklace valued at the time at $1 million. By this time, Cartier had branches in London, New York and Saint Petersburg. 

By 1910, Cartier had found another medium to work with-pieces of rock crystal, a colorless, hard stone which was carved with foliate scrollwork. Always open to experimenting with materials, the jewelers began using blackened steel as a setting for rubies and diamonds in 1913. 

When the firm started to design its own jewelry, the Art Nouveau style of flowing, floral lines was at its peak. But Cartier chose to look back to historical Renaissance or Neoclassical architectural ornamentation for inspiration. A pendant in the form of an Ionic column, for instance, with scrolls from ancient stonework, is a good example. Cartier had a simplicity of design work with geometric patterns.

A trip to St. Petersburg in 1914 through 1915 and the popularity in the west of Faberge, inspired Cartier's Russian period. The trip was essentially to sell diamond and platinum jewelry and to purchase Russian enameled, gold objets d'art, but a year later Cartier had produced its own Russian style pieces and began exhibiting regularly in Russia, selling pieces to Russian nobility.

After the Russian Revolution, many of Faberge's American and European followers switched to Cartier, and this style continued to be produced until the 1920s.

The overseas influence set a trend in Cartier design. The brothers' admiration of the past led to ancient designs from Egypt, Persia, India, China and Japan being reworked in a modern way. The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922 unleashed worldwide Egyptomania. Cartier produced pieces, such as a vanity box in the form of a sarcophagus. Designers looked to source books and museums, such as the Louvre and the British Museum, for inspiration. 

The collecting instincts of the Cartiers was evident in the way they included ancient fragments in their pieces, such as in a winged scarab brooch which included blue glazed wing pieces which would have been found on the chest of a mummy.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the Sears Catalogue and the items sold in it in "Sears' Book of Bargains" in the 2021 Fall Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

A Memento of Antarctic Exploration

 

QUESTION: I’m a watch repair person. Recently, a rather unique 24-hour watch came across my counter for a new band. I’ve never seen one like it before and wandered if you could tell me more about it. The dial has what looks like a map of Antarctica on it and all the lettering seems to be in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. Also, the dial has some writing in red on it.

ANSWER: What you have is what’s known as Russian Raketa Polar Watch.  They’re often described as Raketa watches.

The Petrodvorets Watch Factory, the one that produces Raketa watches, is the oldest in Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1721. The Nazis destroyed it during the Siege of Leningrad, but the Soviets rebuilt it in 1944. Since 1961, the factory has been producing watches under the brand “Raketa,” meaning “rocket,” in honor of Yuri Gagarin, Russia’s first astronaut and the first person in Space. 

Today, the Petrodvorets Watch Factory, still located in its historic building, is one of the rare watch factories in the world that makes its own movements, including the hair spring, balance wheel, and escapement. In 2009, the company modernized its production with equipment purchased from the Swatch Group in Switzerland.

Often these watches don’t look like Petrodvorets produced them. However, they were often assembled from Raketa parts—probably everything except the dial. Most of the online auction listings say they were "handmade" in Russia. And, for the most part, that’s true. But being part of "Old stock" refers more to the parts than to the complete watch. 

In the 1950s and 1960s, it was common for smaller workshops to produce these watches using Raketa parts. Different Polar, Arctic, and Antarctic models originated from this time. These “fakes” were essentially assembled from whatever parts the makers could find. Supposedly Petrodvorets’ workers during the Soviet Era would produce Raketa watches with modified dials on their own after hours. This continued until 2009, when new owners took over the company.

The majority of Raketa watches were actually produced in the original Petrodvorets factory by original Raketa masters using original Raketa parts. What they modified, if needed, was the dial. These Raketa masters had the tools and knowledge to produce special dial watches.

This watch is one of those special dial watches. It commemorates the first Soviet research  expedition to Antarctica in 1956. But must have been produced after the fact since Yuri Gagarin didn’t go into space until April 12, 1961, if in fact it is a Raketa watch. 

Russian explorers Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev, sailing on the ships Vostok and Mirny, first sighted a continental ice shelf in Antarctica in 1820. The continent, however, remained largely neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack of resources, and isolation.

The first Soviet contact with Antarctica came in January 1947 when the Slava whaling flotilla began whaling in Antarctic waters. But it wasn’t until The Soviet Antarctic Expedition, or Sovyetskaya Antarkticheskaya Ekspeditziya, part of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute of the Soviet Committee on Antarctic Research of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, that the Russians explored the interior of the continent to the South Pole. 

The Soviets established their first Antarctic research station, Mirny, near the coast on February 13, 1956. In December 1957, they built another station, Vostok, inland near the south geomagnetic pole. The Fourth Soviet Antarctic Expedition used three large tractors and four sledges on the journey from Vostok to the South Pole, and it’s this expedition that this watch commemorates. The words in red on the dial state “The Soviet Antarctic Expedition,” or “Sovyetskaya Antarkticheskaya Ekspeditziya” in Russian.

In 1959, twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty, prohibiting military activities and mineral mining, prohibits nuclear explosions and nuclear waste disposal, supports scientific research, and protects the continent's ecozone. As of today, forty-nine nations have signed the treaty. More than 4,000 scientists from many nations now conduct ongoing experiments in Antarctic life and climate change.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Sparkling World of Glass" in the 2021 Winter Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The Art of Knokhloma

 

QUESTION: For years I’ve been collecting decorative wooden bowls and utensils that someone told me were Ukranian. They look to be some type folk art but I’m not sure how old the pieces I have actually are.  I’ve never seen or read anything about them, but their bright colors and attractive designs  really attracted me. I found most of the pieces in my collection at garage sales and fleamarkets. What can you tell me about the pieces in my collection?

ANSWER: The pieces in your collection aren’t Ukrainian but Russian—there’s a difference. In fact, they originated in the Kovernino District of the Nizhni Novgorod province north of Moscow. The painting style became to be known as Khokhloma. 

, which first appeared in the second half of the 17th century, is known for its curved and vivid mostly flower, berry and leaf patterns. The Firebird, a figure from the Russian fairytale, can also be used.

A combination of red, black, and gold are typical colors for Khokhloma. When artisans paint on wood, they use mostly red, black, green, yellow and orange  over a gold background. This makes the wooden tableware look heavier and metallic.

The production of painted dishes in Khokhloma is first mentioned in 1659 in the letter of a boyar called Morozov to his bailiff, containing an order for 100 painted dishes and 40 painted wine bowls.

The handicraft owes its origin to the Old Believers, who, fleeing from persecutions of officials, took refuge in the local woods. Even earlier, however, local craftsmen had experience in making tableware from soft woods. But it was icon-painters who taught them the special technique of painting wood in a golden color without the use of real gold.

The craftsmen carved utensils and dishes out of wood, then primed them with clay mortar, raw linseed oil, and tin powder. They then painted a floral pattern on top of this coating. After that, they coated the pieces with linseed oil and hardened them in a kiln at high temperatures. 

Artisans used two principal wood painting techniques on the Khokhloma—the  "superficial technique," red and black colors over a goldish one, and the "background technique," a goldish silhouette-like design over a colored background.

One of the villages where the art of Khokhloma painting had originally been practiced in ancient times grew to become a trading post to which the local craftsmen brought their wares for sale starting from the 18th century.

But it wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that Westerners first learned of the Khokhloma painting style through an exhibition in Paris. But by the early 20th century, the style seemed to be fading away, only to be revitalized during the Soviet times. 

The Khokhloma craftsmen united into artels in the 1920s to early 1930s. In the 1960s, the Soviets built a factory called the Khokhloma Painter near the Khokhloma village and another one in the town of Semyonov. These two factories have become the Khokhloma centers of Russia and still produce tableware, utensils,, furniture, and souvenirs.

The three colors—red, black, and gold—used in Khokhloma painting had a profound symbolism for decorating the sacred church vessels and the dishes and cups used in the monasteries and nunneries, as well as in icon ornaments. The red color represented beauty, the gold color symbolized the spiritual heavenly light, while the black color signified the cleansing of the human soul. The religious symbolism of colors has long been lost in the Khokhloma art but the precise and solemn scheme of colors inherent in the festive design of the "gilded" dishes grew to be traditionally used for decorating all wooden Khokhloma articles and made them especially favored by collectors.

There are families in the region famous for Khokhloma art who have been keeping secret formulas of painting materials and techniques, transferring them from one generation to the next for more than three centuries. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Celebrating an Olde Fashioned Holiday" in the 2020 Holiday Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The Quest for Polar Knowledge

QUESTION: I’m a watch repair person. Recently, a rather unique 24-hour watch came across my counter for a new band. I’ve never seen one like it before and wandered if you could tell me more about it. The dial has what looks like a map of Antarctica on it and all the lettering seems to be in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. Also, the dial has some writing in red on it.

ANSWER: What you have is what’s known as 24-hour Russian Raketa Polar Watch.  They’re often described as Raketa watches.

The Petrodvorets Watch Factory, the one that produces Raketa watches, is the oldest in Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1721. The Nazis destroyed it during the Siege of Leningrad, but the Soviets rebuilt it in 1944. Since 1961, the factory has been producing watches under the brand “Raketa,” meaning “rocket,” in honor of Yuri Gagarin, Russia’s first astronaut and the first person in Space.

Today, the Petrodvorets Watch Factory, still located in its historic building in St. Petersburg, Russia, is one of the rare watch factories in the world that makes its own movements, including the hair spring, balance wheel, and escapement. In 2009, the company modernized its production with equipment purchased from the Swatch Group in Switzerland.

Often these watches don’t look like Petrodvorets produced them. However, they were often assembled from Raketa parts—probably everything except the dial. Most of the online auction listings say they were "handmade" in Russia. And, for the most part, that’s true. But being part of "Old stock" refers more to the parts than to the complete watch.

In the 1950s and 1960s, it was common for smaller workshops in the Soviet Union to produce these watches using Raketa parts. Different Polar, Arctic, and Antarctic models originated from this time. These “fakes” were essentially assembled from whatever parts the makers could find. Supposedly Petrodvorets’ workers during the Soviet Era would produce Raketa watches with modified dials on their own after hours. This continued until 2009, when new owners took over the company.

The majority of Raketa watches were actually produced in the original Petrodvorets factory by original Raketa masters using original Raketa parts. What they modified, if needed, was the dial. These Raketa masters had the tools and knowledge to produce special dial watches.

This watch is one of those special dial watches. It commemorates the first Soviet research expedition to Antarctica in 1956. But must have been produced after the fact since Yuri Gagarin didn’t go into space until April 12, 1961, if in fact it is a Raketa watch.

Russian explorers Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev, sailing on the ships Vostok and Mirny, first sighted a continental ice shelf in Antarctica in 1820. The continent, however, remained largely neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack of resources, and isolation.

The first Soviet contact with Antarctica came in January 1947 when the Slava whaling flotilla began whaling in Antarctic waters. But it wasn’t until The Soviet Antarctic Expedition, or Sovyetskaya Antarkticheskaya Ekspeditziya, part of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute of the Soviet Committee on Antarctic Research of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, that the Russians explored the interior of the continent to the South Pole.

The Soviets established their first Antarctic research station, Mirny, near the coast on February 13, 1956. In December 1957, they built another station, Vostok (also the name of Gagarin's space capsule), inland near the south geomagnetic pole. The Fourth Soviet Antarctic Expedition used three large tractors and four sledges on the journey from Vostok to the South Pole, and it’s this expedition that this watch commemorates. The words in red on the dial state “The Soviet Antarctic Expedition,” or “Sovyetskaya Antarkticheskaya Ekspeditziya” in Russian.

In 1959, twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty, prohibiting military activities and mineral mining, prohibits nuclear explosions and nuclear waste disposal, supports scientific research, and protects the continent's ecozone. As of today, forty-nine nations have signed the treaty. More than 4,000 scientists from many nations now conduct ongoing experiments in Antarctic life and climate change.