Russian bone lace: How Kholmogory masters created their masterpieces

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

Of course, Chinese craftsmen are considered unsurpassed masters of bone carving, because in the Celestial Empire they have been engaged in this craft for more than one thousand years. But Russia also had and still has many talented carvers. The Kholmogory bone carving school has a particularly rich and glorious history. The museums of the world keep magnificent examples of caskets, caskets, miniature cabinets, made in the technique of openwork Kholmogory bone carving.

In the Far North, bone carving has long been a traditional craft for these places. And this is not surprising - because here residents in large quantities catch not only fish, but also walrus tusks, here called "fish tooth". It also happened that fossil mammoths were found. Both walrus and mammoth bones are excellent materials for carving. Walrus bone is very beautiful - it has either white or yellowish color, its structure is heterogeneous. As for the mammoth bone, it is a unique and very durable material. Over thousands of years, as a result of mineralization, tusks acquire a variety of shades - they can be orange, pink, purple …

Carvers from Kholmogory were especially famous for their skill. The settlement, which arose in the XIV century on the banks of the Northern Dvina, is considered the birthplace of this ancient craft.

Kholmogory carvers mastered and masterly mastered a variety of techniques for working with bone - engraving with staining, relief and openwork carving …

Engraving is used when you want to achieve an impressive effect, while preserving the natural beauty of the material used. It is mainly used on walrus tusks and sperm whale teeth.

Kholmogory icons

Most of them belong to the XVIII - early. XIX centuries. The icons were made with great skill, the delicate and expressive relief carving in the depiction of saints is especially impressive.

And this is a rare and one of the most valuable icons, "The Transfiguration of the Lord." Its frame is very beautiful, made in the form of ribbons and rocailles (an element of the rococo style ornament, similar to the curl of a shell).

Portraits and sculptural compositions

To give more solemnity to the portrait, the carver placed it in a magnificent frame of numerous Kholmogory curls.

Many young masters dreamed of surprising everyone with their skill, cutting out something extraordinary, something that no one had done before. Once, two brothers once boasted that they would be able to cut out images of all Russian tsars. At that time, the ability to carve portraits was considered the highest degree of skill. And what? A few years later, they were able to fulfill what they promised - 61 portraits of rulers, from the Rurik to Elizabeth, were carved on the decorative plate.

Walrus and mammoth bones are excellent materials for making chess: Russian craftsmen have carved them since the 17th century.

Caskets

The casket is assembled from separate bone plates.

Desktop cabinets

They resemble secretaires in shape, with many drawers, but without a table top.

Late 18th - early 19th century

At the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, masters finally unleash their imagination: bizarre ornaments, portraits, genre compositions consisting of several figures emerge from under their chisel.

19th century

Classicism, a new style of the beginning of the 19th century, could not but be reflected in the works of the Kholmogory masters - they become more strict and laconic in form, and their ornament - more miniature. It was then that the work of the Kholmogory carvers began to be called jewelry.

Although the creators of all these masterpieces, virtuosos of their craft, most often remained unknown to us, history has preserved several names.

Brothers Sheshenin

In the written documents of the 17th century concerning the Kholmogory carvers, it is recorded that the local craftsmen, the Sheshenin brothers, were summoned to Moscow by the tsar himself to work in the Armory. They were instructed to restore the royal bone throne of Ivan III, which was made by Greek craftsmen in the 15th century. The Pomor brothers did not disappoint, they coped with the work - they restored the throne. You can still look at their magnificent work - this ancient throne is in the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin.

The Sheshenins remained to work in the capital, and they were revered there as the best bone cutters.

Dudin Osip Khristoforovich

Born in the Arkhangelsk province into a simple peasant family, there are now two of his carved mugs, made in the 70s of the 18th century, in museums. On them Dudin carved relief portraits of Russian tsars and princes. One of them, 1774 - 1775 rr., Is kept in the Hermitage. Fifty-eight are located on its surface against the background of fine openwork carving in four rows! portraits (from Rurik to Catherine II). The portraits also adorn the surface of the lid, which is crowned with images of the symbols of power - the crown and orb. The base of the mug is made of horn in a contrasting dark color.

Vereshchagin Nikolay Stepanovich

One of the most famous masters of the late 18th - early 19th centuries was Nikolai Stepanovich Vereshchagin. Several of his masterpieces have survived - decorative vases, which are now kept in the Hermitage.

And in conclusion - some magnificent works of modern Kholmogory master carvers:

A wonderful trade is alive!