GOLDSMITH'S ART - Faberge' Eggs

After the First World War, the fall of monarchy in Russia, and the impoverishment of the aristocracy, many Faberge articles were sold or passed to new owners. In the 1920's, to add hard currency to the treasury, the Soviet government sold a number of works of art from state collections. From the imperial collections, confiscated after 1917, a large portion of apparently «absolutely useless» for Soviet society unique Easter eggs was sold.

Even in spite of the belligerent atheism of the postrevolution decades, the tradition of celebrating Easter was passing from generation to generation—it was very deep-rooted in the Orthodox believers throughout Russia. When the making of present, artistic Easter eggs stopped, people continued celebrating Easter with krashenki (those eggs dyed in one or several colors which practically every Russian knows) and pisanki (painted with ornaments).

Almost all manufacturers of traditional painted wooden art works would make Easter eggs as well. True, for a long time this was disapproved of by the officials. Therefore the living art of the wooden Easter egg found refuge in backcountry villages east of the Volga: Polkhovskiy Maydan and Krutets. The most frequently represented motifs and subject matters are images of a cockerel or a pullet, a sun, a temple or a church, etc.

Today there excist well know centers for producing Eastern Eggs such as Nizhni Novgorod area, where one of the first places is held by legendary Khokhloma.