How a native of peasants created the "Russian style" in jewelry art: Sazikovs Factory

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

"Sazikov" is the oldest of the famous jewelry manufactories of the Russian Empire, ahead of its time in many ways. Over the seven decades of its existence, the Sazikov firm has reached incredible heights, having formed a recognizable style, which the masters imitated throughout the next century … However, its creator for many years had no right to even bear this name.

Until recently, the legacy of the Sazikovs remained a mystery to researchers. Even the information about the beginning of their career varies. Be that as it may, at the end of the 18th century, Pavel Sazikov, a native of economic peasants, came to Moscow to open a silver workshop there. The beginning of the existence of the company "Sazikov" is considered 1810, but it is known that the official right to bear the name Sazikovs received from the Moscow magistrate only in 1811. At about the same time, they opened their own store of silver products.

And … in just a few years, from a former peasant, Pavel Sazikov turned into a merchant of the second guild - his enterprise brought tangible income. His son, Ignatius, repeatedly traveled outside the Russian Empire in search of new technologies, materials, mechanisms and experience. Not a single engineering novelty escaped his attention, and he strove to immediately use what he saw in practice. The equipment of the manufactory even now seems to be something in the spirit of fantasy novels in the steampunk style, and for their time the Sazikovs were actually miracle workers. The latest technologies, newfangled principles of organization, a steam engine and guilloche machines, various forms and devices for casting …

One of the first in Russia, the Sazikovs introduced the division of labor, which allowed an incredible increase in productivity. Each craftsman was responsible for a specific part of the process in which he strove to achieve performing excellence - be it casting, embossing or grinding. So the Sazikovs began to produce not just a lot of products - all products of stunning quality and beauty. In addition, the Sazikovs decided to open a school at their enterprise, where up to eighty masters studied at the same time.

However, Ignatiy Sazikov himself was not only a talented organizer, but also an outstanding jeweler. For his unique technique of work and the complexity of his compositions he was called "Russian Benvenuto Cellini". The silver products of the manufactory retained the features of Baroque, Rococo and Empire - styles known and familiar to the eye of wealthy customers. Shapes of shells, bizarre bends, flowing curls of plants … But Sazikov wants something different - and begins to think about creating something more "Russian". In 1835, the Sazikov firm became the only Russian silver manufactory to become an imperial court workshop and began supplying items to the court, and a year later it received the status of a factory. She even has a branch in St. Petersburg.

Ignatiy Sazikov was one of those people who are never content with what they have. He sent one of his sons, who showed the greatest talent and interest in jewelry, to Paris to study drawing and comprehend the secrets of the craft. In the same years, the factory began to produce decorative silver sculptures dedicated to important milestones in Russian history. And Pavel Ignatievich - the young man was named after his grandfather - excelled in this genre.

The works of Pavel Ignatievich Sazikov shocked his contemporaries with detail, complexity, scope. The most famous of them is a silver candelabrum decorated with a sculptural scene - "Dmitry Donskoy". At the World Exhibition in London, this work brought the master a gold medal. He also created an extraordinary collection of silver items dedicated to the Russian peasantry - remembering his roots.

Never before has high jewelry been so close to the people. Skillfully executed images of Cossacks, hunters, dancing bears, working people amazed the sophisticated audience with their unusualness, even exoticism. London masters, of course, were inventive - but the Sazikovs brought there a mysterious "Russian spirit", something distant, something ancient and exciting. The expert commission did not hide their enthusiasm.

In their appeal to heroic or everyday subjects of Russian history, the Sazikovs were ahead of all other factories and manufactories by almost half a century. They are called the founders of the "Russian style" in jewelry and arts and crafts. Later, at the end of the 19th century, a lot of decorative ladles with images of knights, porcelain painted with images of farmers and soldiers, vases with ancient Russian ornaments …

But in those years, when in Russian decorative and applied art the breakaway from the roots was indescribable and imitation was a measure of good taste, the Sazikovs with their heroes and bears (as well as paperweights in the form of bast shoes and village houses) became revolutionaries. All the newfangled technologies that they used were aimed only at improving the traditional ones - enamel, niello, casting, embossing. And the ornaments that the masters engraved were inspired by Russian antiquity. Perhaps it was their harsh, primordial, epic spirit that was so fond of the most important of the company's customers - Emperor Nicholas I. However, the Sazikovs worked both for the church and for ordinary townspeople, fulfilling many foreign orders. They attracted academic artists to work long before the creation of something utilitarian ceased to be shameful for “real creators”.

However, the star of Pavel Ignatievich Sazikov was destined to set early. He briefly outlived his father, and after his death, the factory began to fade. The heirs sold the family property, and in 1887 the company was also sold. The works of the Sazikovs' factory can be found in Russian museums - for example, in the State Historical Museum there are spoons, salt shakers, and mugs created by them. The Cup of Pavel Sazikov's work "starred" in the cinema - in the film "The Barber of Siberia".