Arts & Crafts Revival

From 16 - 23 May, the From Dacha to Dance: Folk Art and the Ballet Russes online auction will offer an impressive collection of works from the Russian Arts and Crafts revival.

The late 19^th century marked the growth of decorative and applied arts, both in the Russian Empire and Europe, where a new art movement had begun. It was a dynamic arts movement that included different mediums and proclaimed freedom of expression as well as the reassertion of national identity.

This new revival style in Arts and Crafts took inspiration from folk traditions but expressed its ideas in a distinct modern language. The so called old Russian style, as it has so far been interpreted, had been completely forgotten. By many it was seen as something obsolete and dead, unable to take its place in modern art. However, this new movement revived long forgotten old craftsmanship. It did not require artists to copy old shapes and patterns, but to be creative with traditional applied arts. 

We spoke to Head of Sale, Daria Khristova, about five of her favourite Arts and Crafts works going under the hammer.

Lot 2
A finely embroidered folder presented to Jane McGill

The early 19^th century saw the revival of embroidery, which had been a part of traditional Russian craftsmanship since the 10^th century. Russian ornamental embroidery is often based on ornaments derived from silverwork, fine foreign fabrics, and decorative manuscript books. Russian embroiderers selected patterns and artistic techniques that corresponded to national concepts of beauty.

The embroidery of the 16th-19th centuries had an elite character, as imported fabrics and threads for embroidery were very expensive. Embroidered fabrics were passed down by inheritance, given to temples and monasteries as gifts and secular dresses were sometimes converted into religious objects, giving fabrics and embroidery a second life. This finely embroidered folder is a wonderful example of Russian embroidery skills. 

Lot 32
A wooden box with copper mounts and painted and engraved scene

The Abramtsevo estate, owned by the famous Russian writer S.T. Aksakov in the middle of the 19th century, was passed down to a new owner, S.I. Mamontov, a large entrepreneur and philanthropist. He established the Abramtsevo artist's colony near Moscow which later became a centre for fostering the revival of Russian folk art and traditional crafts. The estate and the colony of artists around Abramtsevo became one of the most influential centres of art and music in Moscow, famous for its distinctive creative and intellectual milieu. 

The stimulating atmosphere of Mamontov's residence exemplified the idea of the synthesis of various art forms and its national manifestation; works were created in a neo-Russian style - the fusion of European modernism and Russian romanticism. The principal feature of the 'neo-Russian style' of the end of the 19th and early-20th century was that its origins were derived not from traditional or ancient art, but from folk art. New artists were not only taking their inspiration from it but also worked in close creative contact with the folk masters. 

Lot 49
A wooden photograph frame

As the manager of the Mamontovs' woodworking workshops at Abramtsevo, Polenova borrowed from pre-Petrine folk art in her designs for furniture and other wooden objects. Together with Elizaveta Mamontova, she also began creating a museum of folk art in Abramtsevo, which could keep inspirational objects for workshops. She collected household items, samples of weaving and embroidery, and sketched ornaments from villages. To supplement the collection, she even travelled on special expeditions for folk household items in Yaroslavl, Vladimir, and Rostov provinces. From 1885 to 1894, Elena Dmitrievna executed more than 100 projects of furniture and objects of decorative and applied art. 

Lot 20
Two wooden boxes

Since the end of the 19th century, a new artistic technique of processing wood, decorated with burning and painting, came into fashion in Russia. As a result, in the 1900s in Sergiev Posad, educational workshops and a carpentry workshop of the Moscow province were established. Vladimir Sokolov created sketches for painting works of decorative and applied art in the so-called 'Sokolov style', which combines burning contours with colouring on wood. He used his own landscapes, as well as ornaments from the Northern Strand from the Russian Museum, which he coloured with gold paint. His landscapes of white roofs covered with snow, painted with bright white paint, were particularly effective.

Lot 64
Natalia Goncharova
Costume design for Maria Chabelska

Theatrical and costume designs by Natalia Goncharova are refined, imitable, and musical. They reflect a shift in theatrical art, giving priority to imagination and tradition. While the production for which this costume was designed is not stated, it is possible that it was for Les Sylphides, which was performed at the Théâtre du Châtelet on 18 May, 1917, as part of the program of Les Ballets Russes à Paris, Représentations Exceptionnelles, May 1917, and in which Chabelska is listed as a dancer in the Nocturne.