«Horse in harness». A Toy
Fedoseevo, Nizhny Novgorod region. 1930–1940s
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Location in museum
The Rossi Wing
Open the panorama of the hall in the virtual tour
Room 12 - Period Early 20th century
- CategoryAnimal Painting
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Nizhny Novgorod Province was famed for its numerous craft industries. A centre for the fashioning of toys that were dubbed «amusements» developed in Fedoseyevo village in the late nineteenth century. From aspen blocks and thin boards, craftsmen would create carousels and windmills with music and movement — steams, steam engines, trucks, doll furniture and carts with harnesses. All these items were decorated, directly onto the wood, without a priming coat, with frizzy crayon flourishes creating crimson patches and flowers. Russian Museum: From Icons to the Modern Times. Palace Editions, St Petersburg, 2015. P. 294.
In the Semenovsky District, on the basis of the folk crafts a centre of a wooden toy appeared in the village of Fedoseevo at the end of 19th century. The style of the Fedoseevo toy painting was formed under the initial influence of the style of the painted Semenovo spoon. Its peculiarity is the yellow background covered with the linseed oil, on which scarlet flowers with green leaves or images of human figures, animals, birds, are drawn. The pictures are reminiscent of children's drawings. There are two main types of toys in Fedoseevo: cut by and ax (In Russian toporschina, from the word an ax) and balyasy (amuseuments). The pieces are made from the cut boards and splinters.The shapes of the objects are square or rectangular with straight or sloping walls. The furniture for dolls, steamers, locomotives, tram carriages, sledges and carts, balalaikas, mills with rotating wings, carousels with squeaky music were also made in Fedoseevo. Rigid constructive forms of toys are softened by painting, which conceals their sharp corners.