Pair of vases
Nikolai Stepanovich Vereshchagin
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The art of bone-carving in Russia is inseparably linked with the remote northern whaling city of Arkhangel'sk. Lack of academic training and his humble position in a customs office were not impediments to the most widely recognized Arkhangel'sk bone carver, Nikolai Stepanovich Vereshchagin, whose vases were commissioned as ambassadorial gifts of state and for the personal collection of Czar Alexander I. The oval body of each of these examples in the Neoclassical style is decorated with an ajouré (pierced) decoration, four circular medallions in relief, and a finial surmounted by the figure of Atlas. The design of the energetically curving floral stalks resembles ornament found in seventeenth-century Russian book illustrations, and the Four Elements–one in each medallion–were inspired either by the "Frankish" prints circulating in Russia since the seventeenth century or by images from the "Book of Symbols and Emblems" commissioned by Peter the Great in 1703 in Amsterdam. This elegant pair of vases is a particularly fine example of the work of Vereshchagin. "The noble and calm simplicity" of their form and the exquisite carving blend well with some stiffness in the rendering of the human bodies, which only adds to this artwork an air of soft, intimate charm.
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.