The box "The Song about the merchant Kalashnikov", Moscow

Wood, varnish. Hand-painted with paints. The artist V. Dmitriev. Size 105*105*53 mm. Guarantee of authenticity.

The Mstera lacquer miniature is a type of Russian folk art that originated in the village of Mstera, Vladimir region. The prehistory of the craft was objects made of wood, painted with tempera and varnished: boxes with ornaments, trays, cups. In the 14th century, along with Palekh and Kholui, Mstera was one of the centers of Russian icon painting. By the middle of the 18th century, the so—called "petty letters" appeared - icons with miniature scenes and many details. At the beginning of the 20th century, with the advent of chromolithographs, a crisis began in the industry. And after the revolution, there was no need for icons. The new government did not need traditional subjects related to the tsarist past, but the masters of miniature lacquer did not have to be repurposed — now episodes of building communism in the countryside, civil war, and folk epics began to be depicted on caskets, chests, and brooches. Iconographic traditions, fabulousness and social realism all rolled into one. The manufacture of lacquered boxes with miniature paintings originated in the 1930s after the First All-Russian Agricultural and Handicraft Industry Exhibition. Initially, the former icon painters joined forces in 1923 to form the Artel of Ancient Russian Painting. In 1931, the artel "Proletarian Art" was formed, which later became a factory. It was after the exhibition that the decision was made to make papier-mache boxes. The painting was done with tempera paints prepared on the basis of egg yolk emulsion. By the 1950s, the main features of the style had developed. Prominent representatives of the master lacquer miniature are: A. I. Bryagin, A. F. Kotyagin, I. N. Morozov, N. P. Klykov, V. F. Galyshev, I. I. Tyulin and Serebryakov.