Regions of Russia: “Golden Age of Russian Jewelry” exhibition in Vladimir

On December 21 2010 the Vladimir and Suzdal Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve launched an exhibition “Golden Age of the Russian Jewelry”. It put on display over a hundred of exhibits from collections of Moscow Kremlin Museums, some of them have for the first time left the Kremlin. The exhibition unveils an unusually interesting and rare collection of jewelry ranging from the Empire style to Art Nouveau: jewelry, articles of everyday life, rare memorial items, including precious snuffboxes and medallions, caskets and bracelets dating back to 18th – 20th cc.

A pearl of the exposition are works done by the Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of the Emperor Paul I, patron of sciences and arts. Thus the empress appears as a gifted graphic artist and medalist.

National upsurge, evoked by the Patriotic War of 1812, is reflected in golden and silver jewelry. The Kremlin Museums show a memorial dish which belonged to the general M.I. Platov and a golden snuffbox with an engraved portrait of the 1812 Patriotic War hero Prince Wittgenstein.

The exhibition features remarkable articles of silversmiths, such as Gedlund, Grigoryev, Skripitsyn, Zuyev, Cordes, Wiberg, Gubkin, as well as masterpieces of world-famous jeweler’s of Sazikov, Nichols and Plinke, Grachyovy brothers, Postnikov, Ovchinnikov, Khlebnikov, and Fabergé.