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BACK TO ROOM 3, Gallery 1


"Swan+Geese"

Stock #: 104111

Artist: Gurova
Palekh

Size: 2" X 1 1/2" X 1" Reg.$ 73.95
Your price: $ 38

 

The box is signed by the artist and comes with the Certificate of Authenticity.

 

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A couple left their daughter in charge of her younger brother, but she lost track of him, and the magic swan geese snatched him away. She chased after him and came to an oven. It offered to tell her if she ate its rye buns; she scorned them, saying she doesn't even eat wheat buns. She also scorned similar offers from an apple tree, and a river of milk. She came across a little hut built on a hen's foot, in which she found Baba Yaga with her brother; Baba Yaga set her to spin flax and left. A mouse scurried out and said it would tell her what she needed to know if she gave it porridge; she did, and it told her that Baba Yaga was heating the bath house to steam her, then she would cook her. The mouse took over her spinning, and the girl took her brother and fled.
Baba Yaga sent the swan geese after her. She begged the river for aid, and it insisted she eat some of it first; she did, and it sheltered her. When she ran on, the swan geese followed again, and the same happened with the apple tree and the oven. Then she reached home and safety.

This box is beautifully painted with amazing and intricate details.

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Lacquer boxes from Palekh might well enjoy the highest world-wide acclaim. The lacquer art of Palekh has been called "a small miracle", a label particularly fitting since that the village specialized in icon-painting for centuries until the 1917 Russian revolution. To many collectors, Palekh boxes have the most elegant look to them. When you hold one in your hand, you know you are holding something truly special. Most often in Palekh works, innumerable fine lines of gold leaf, polished to a glow by a wolf's tooth, are applied to the ornamental border and drawing itself. A simple one-color background then provides a beautiful contrast to the gold leaf and scene itself. This background, usually black, also serves to take the observer into a new world where one's concept of time and space is left to the imagination.


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russian lacquer boxes
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