| This idea to paint the miniature on the box and
to cover it with lacquer appeared above thousand years ago in Asian counties
like China and Japan. In the 17-18th centuries these idea and technology
were borrowed by Europeans. Snuffboxes were in great demand in all European
countries but the boxes of turtle shell or ivory were too expensive for
the main part of population. In chronicles it is possible to find notes
about factories of lacquer boxes in England, France, Switzerland etc.
But the most famous was the factory of German merchant Schtobwasser in
the town of Braunschweig. In Russia nobody was familiar with this new
handcraft. By chance in 1795 Russian merchant Korobov was travelling in Europe and among other places he visited Braunschweig and Schtobwasser's factory. The idea of beautiful but not extremely expensive boxes attracted him and Korobov decided to develop this handcraft in Russia. Back to Russia he returned with the team of Germans, who were artists and carpenters. In his own village of Danilkovo he opened the factory of lacquer miniature and the school, where children learned the miniature painting from Germans. Later village of Danilkovo was annexed by the nearest village of Fedoskino (they stayed on two hills separated by small river) and the second one gave its name to the worldly famous center of Russian handcraft. Under Korobov's time factory was not big and manufacturing of the boxes did not bring enough profit. To cover expenses they produced other items using boxes technology for example walking-sticks or military caps brims for Russian army. But more and more artist joined the factory after studying painting in school and lacquer boxes started to conquest their place on Russian market. Unfortunately Korobov did not witness the first great success of his "child". He had died before. His daughter married merchant Lukutin, who became Korobov's legatee. They say Lukutin was very talented businessman and highly educated person. He continued to invest into art industry and in few years Fedoskino became well known not only in Russia but in European countries also. In 1828 Lukutin displayed his factory production at the International exhibition in Paris and for the beauty and quality of the boxes Lukutin Family Factory was rewarded with second prize of this exhibition. Another reward was waiting for him in Russia. Russian Tsar (it was Nicholas I) by the same reasons allowed Lukutin to mark his boxes with Russian Royal emblem (double-head eagle). It meant that Lukutin Family Factory became the official supplier of Russian Royal Family. Three generations of the Lukutins upheld the spotless reputation of their factory and every time new Russian Tsar were admired by their boxes and continued the Royal permission. That is why your can see different number of Royal emblems, from one to four, on antique Lukutin's boxes. The beginning of the 20th century was noted like very hard time in Russia economy. Country needed in reformation in its industry, agriculture and as internal as foreign affairs. Russian Tsar Nicholas II realized it but being not resolute person did not change anything. As a result of his uncertain policy Russia got the war with Japan in 1904 and first revolution in 1905. These events destabilized the situation in the country and of cause art business suffered in the first order. The granddaughter of the first Lukutin closed Lukutin Family Factory at the end of 1904. That was the end of the long and very successful period of the Lukutins in the history of Fedoskino. Next six years were lost for Russian lacquer miniature but after Stolypin's reforms the situation had become better. Fedoskino artists reminded to Royal Family about their handcraft and in 1910 Russian Government helped them to open the co-operative. Now it was not the private factory of one family but cooperative of Fedoskino Artists. The sign on the boxes also had been changed. Since 1910 they started to write on the boxes the name of the village "Fedoskino", the last name of the artist and the year. Under the Lukutins times they wrote only "Factory of the Lukutins Family" and stamped the box with the Russian Royal emblem. After 1917 it was nationalized, like everything in Russia, but artists continued to work in the same artistic style. Just new subjects appeared, like scenes of Revolution and Civil war, scenes of labor at Soviet industrial giants and collective farms and portraits of Communist Party leaders instead of nobility ones. In 1954 Soviet Government started to close down all co-operatives in Soviet Union and Fedoskino did not avoid it. Instead of co-operative there was opened State Factory of Fedoskino Lacquer Miniature. Another ministry (now Ministry of Foreign Trade instead of Ministry of Local Industries) started to control the factory and it brought great changes into the style of painting. Artists were pushed to use subjects from Russian fairy tales, to use much more gold foil and mother-of-pearl. The idea was to make boxes much brighter and more attractive for foreigners and to sell them only abroad for hard currency. The style of Lukutin's times was not lost but was forgotten for a long time. As they say, people who wanted to continue Lukutin's traditions of painting were not allowed to do it. After 1988-1990 it became possible to break State monopoly allover former Soviet Union. Immediately some part of artists, mainly young, decided to leave the factory and to organize an alternative team. It was founded in 1991 under the name "Russian Collection". At the present time the situation in Fedoskino is following: there are two teams of artists, State Factory and "Russian Collection" (the second is placed in the town of Dolgoprudniy, the suburb of Moscow), but the main income artists get working independently from middle organization and selling their products to independent private dealers. The same is possible to say about other staff, like carpenters, polishers, packing boxes makers etc. Unfortunately salaries in organizations are very small as because of taxation as because of their own management mistakes. There is interesting information about Lukutin
Factory's competitors. As usually it happen, successful business of
somebody attracts many people to do the same. In Russian chronicles
were noted factories of lacquer miniature painting on boxes and trays
in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Tagil and some other Urals and Siberians
towns and cities. But only one of them became also worldly famous. It
was the factory of merchant Vishnyakov. As Korobov sometime before,
he invited few artists and carpenters to leave Fedoskino to his village
of Zhostovo, where founded the factory of lacquer boxes. He did not
imitate Fedoskino trademark but at the very beginning they copied in
Zhostovo some of Fedoskino subjects. Later they started to create by
themselves and now sometimes it is difficult to give the exact answer
about authority looking at some Lukutin's or Vishnyakov's boxes. Under
first years of Soviets Vishnyakov's factory was closed but not for a
long time. The reason to close it was typical for communists. They have
planned economy and did not need the competition. But it was necessary
to employ big number of Zhostovo artists and finally they (in the Ministry
of Culture) found very interesting decision. They opened in Zhostovo
the factory of painted trays and now it is also worldly famous like
Fedoskino and people allover the world enjoy looking at their masterpieces.
Other centers of Russian lacquer boxes, their
names are Palekh, Kholui and Mstyora, are geographically separated from
Fedoskino but they have their own relationship. Now there are few versions
of explanation why three ancient art centers appeared on the piece of
land that has length only 80 km. We chose one, which seems to be more
truthful. It says that at first these villages were noted in Russian
chronicles like centers of icon painting in 14-15th centuries. At that
time Russia was conquered by Mongols. Present Ivanovo province was the
close to the lands of Suzdal and Vladimir Principalities and nobody
lived there and it was absolutely wild area. When capitals of principalities
were attacked by aggressors and later surrendered, many of their citizens
ran away to the north to the wild lands. There were a few monks among
them and they very often were icon painters. In the woods people cleared
the space for new settlements with fire and it explains the name Palekh
(in Russian Language "to burn" means "palit'").
Monks continued to paint icons and also taught children to paint. This
area was not the best for agriculture but it was connected by rivers
with other parts of Russia. Using waterways instead of roads inhabitants
of Palekh, Kholui and Mstyora started to supply the territory of Russia
with icons. In Palekh they specialized in high quality miniature painting,
in Kholui they produced a lot of cheap icons of pure quality for common
people as well as some masterpieces and in Mstyora they preferred to
imitate the style of old-believers. At the 18t-19h centuries these villages
were well known as the centers of regular big fairs and their production
was famous not only allover Russia but in Europe also. They made icons
in the villages as individually as in co-operation. There were a few
teams of icon painters, workshops and factories. The most famous is
Palekh Icon Factory of merchant Safronov. Very often they decorated
the churches interior and for such job artistic teams had to leave their
homes for year or more. Their villages were becoming richer and richer
and there were no clouds on their sky. First signs of crisis in icon
painting appeared at the beginning of 20th century. More and more icon
painting workshops appeared allover Russia. They used oil paints instead
of tempera, they did not pay so much attention to the spirit in their
work, they worked faster and made more icons and for the lower price.
The quality was not so good but customers did not paid attention to
it. At last the communist revolution damaged icon painting into ruins.
The period between 1917 and 1923 is the hardest in the history of these
villages indeed. A lot of artists, who were the main part of local population
were not employed. Very talented people were trying to find themselves
in the occupations that were very far from art. Many of them left their
homes searching for the better places. This tragedy continued until
1923. That year was really lucky for Palekh inhabitants at first and
than for Kholui and Mstyora. One of Palekh artists, his name was Ivan
Golikov, visited his relatives in Moscow. In one of Moscow museums he
saw Fedoskino box. Golikov liked this idea very much. During these six
years he with his friends tried to decorate different items, like wooden
salt-cellars and tea-caddies, carpets etc but without any success. But
this one was very different and Golikov decided to decorate small box
with very high quality miniature following icon painting technique and
style. Fortunately he saw the box with black background. Final result
of his first work amazed everyone. The combination of black background,
bright red horses like from fairy tale and golden highlighting looked
really fantastic. This box was shown to famous Russian and Soviet writer
Maxim Gorky and he decided to help them. It is necessary to say that
Gorky was born not very far from Palekh and in his childhood studied
in icon painting school, so the life of icon painters and their problems
as the past as the present were familiar to him. With the help of Gorky
the factory was opened in Palekh in 1924. At first there were only 7
artists but Palekh boxes became very popular outside of Soviet Union
because of unique style and unusual subjects (they started to use tales
as subjects for painting) and other their colleagues started to join
them. Soviet Government found this experience very successful and opened
the second factory in Mstyora in 1931 and third one in Kholui in 1934.
First decades Kholui factory was not independent. It was the branch
of Mstyora factory and only the Second World War it separated and started
to work like Kholui Art Factory. |
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