Fedoskino - the Birthplace of Lacquer Miniature Painting

The village of Fedoskino, one of the centers of modern Russian boxes, is located in picturesque surroundings of Moscow, on a small river of the Ucha. Fedoskino - about two hundred years renowned for its miniature paintings on Russian boxes.

A characteristic feature of Fedoskino miniature painting has always been a combination of direct painting with glazes superimposed over a gold leaf, mother-of-pearl plaque or over a ground powdered with aluminum dust.

A technique of pure glazing is also used: glaze, a transparent layer of paint, is applied all over another color or ground, so that light passed through it is reflected back by the under-surface and modified by the glaze. This layering brings out a radiant quality in the drawings and the colors seem to emanate from within. Coats of varnish are applied to every layer of paint. Sometimes, an underlay of gold leaf or mother of pearl enhances this radiance and adds a lovely iridescence of its own

Artists from Fedoskino use a more realistic style of painting than the other artists. The lacquer boxes feature intricately hand-drawn miniature paintings based on a variety of themes, including fairy tales, poems, country life, Russian troyka, landscapes, battle scenes, and old art masterpieces. Artists from Fedoskino use oil paints for their drawings. Three to four layers of the oil paints, along with seven coats of lacquer, are applied to each box before it is completed. The lacquer boxes, which vary in size, are extremely well crafted. It can take as long as two months to make a lacquer box out of papier-mache, a material many artists prefer because of its ability to withstand changes in atmospheric conditions and to avoid cracking.

Russian lacquer boxes artists must not only excel artistically, but must also have the patience to spend long stretches of time working on the many small intricate sections of their composition.

The prices for the lacquer box from Fedoskino are set depending on the depicted story, materials in use and the skills of painters. The Russian boxes from Fedoskino are light-weighted, the paintings are fine and sophisticated. Each box  have a signature of painter.

The lacquer boxes made in Fedoskino by special order were offered as traditional gifts to the heads of states. Some masterpieces of lacquered miniature were sold for nearly 100,000 US dollars at the international fairs.

Those, who managed to get a Russian box from Fedoskino, may truly consider themselves the owners of very expensive pieces of art and, what is more, sophisticated connoisseurs of traditional Russian culture.

The Russian box sitting on your mantel today will likely be enjoyed by many generations.