NESTED MATRYOSHKA DOLLS ARE popularly considered to be as Russian as croissants are French, clogs are Dutch or stiff upper lips are English. In fact, these enigmatic little artworks have quite an international background. The original idea for nested objects was born in China during the Song Dynasty (960 AD–1279 AD). Carpenters made boxes inside boxes, to symbolise ingenuity. Eight-hundred years later, the boxes had evolved into dolls – the smallest of which was so diddly it held just one grain of rice. The dolls migrated to Japan, where they were used to depict the Japanese Seven Lucky Gods.
PHOTOGRAPHS: NITSCHKEFOTO/ALAMY
In the late 19th century, a Russian named Savva Mamontov set up an artists’ colony in his homeland, with the aim of strengthening and promoting Russian national folk art and crafts. It’s believed the group were inspired by the Japanese dolls to create their own version based on rural life in Russia. The first was created by Sergei Malyutin; he enlisted a woodworker named Zvyozdochkin to carve the dolls, which Malyutin painted. They called them ‘Matryoshka’, from the Latin root for ‘mother’, and dressed them in sarafans (traditional maternal smocks) and headscarves: the dolls thus became images of Russian motherhood, fertility and plenty. They were shown at the World Fair in Paris in 1900, and were an immediate hit.