Arts and crafts were flourished in the towns and villages who surrounded the monastery. Wooden toys, which were known as "Trinity" toys, became particularly popular. According to the legend the first "Trinity" wooden toy was made by the Prior of the Monastery, Sergius Radonezhsky.
Sergiev Posad was a colorful, truly Russian town. The Monastery lent a unique peculiarity to it. The huge marketplace in front of the Monastery was almost always full of different people: merchants, monks, pilgrims and craftsmen were milling around.
Professional artist made the first painted matryoshka of Sergiev Posad just for fun. That is why these dolls are so expressive and won admiration of adults and children. In the initial period of matryoshka development particularly attention was paid to faces of matryoshka, clothes were not detailed painted. Such dolls depicted different character and types: peasants, merchants, and noblemen.
Sometimes matryoshka portrayed the whole family with numerous children and members of households. Some matryoshkas were devoted to historical themes. The described boyars (old Russia noblemen), legendary heroes bogatirs (warriors), some dolls were devoted to book character.
turnip", Matryoshka "The tale about 8-p., beginning of 20 century.
Development of matryoshka greatly depended on turners' skill. Highly skilled masters turned matryoshkas with very thin sides, which was considered to be a special art of matryoshka turning. Apparently, painting was secondary. Professional artists who painted the first turned dolls did not treat it seriously enough. It was sort of entertainment. There are some matryoshkas - caricatures in the Museum Estate Polenovo. From other hand there were many independent workshops of Sergiev Posad
Where skilled artisans worked and they crated their own style of Russian matryoshka. Folk art tradition was very important in the development of the present Sergiev Posad style. Due to widest layer of folk culture, matryoshka continued to exist even after Russian style, developed by Russian professional artists was forgotten. Icon painters of Sergiev Posad contributed a lot to matryoshka pictorial style. Anthropomorphism, in other words, resemblance to a human being of the Russia "take apart" dolls turned out to be the continuation of ancient Russian art tradition. An artist focused mainly on the figure of a person, his or her face.
This tradition of Russian ancient art came from Byzantine Empire, which had borrowed it from ancient Greek culture. The connection of certain early type of the matryoshkas of Sergiev Posad with the tradition of the local icon painting school is confirmed both stylistically and virtually. Along with the icons, matryoshkas were painted as well in the icon painting school of Sergiev Posad.
Initially matryoshka types were rather different: they portrayed both male and female characters. There are some ethnographic matryoshkas: Samoyed (Eskimo), Gypsy Woman, American Man, Turk, Chinese, Lithuanians, and Tartar Family, Ukrainian and so on. Gradually female character became the main type of matryoshkas. The tradition of making special matryoshka proportion (1:2, that is ration between a matryoshka's width and height) were worked out.
Larisa Soloviova, an author of a great book about Russian matryoshkas divided development of this type of dolls into three periods:
1) 1890 -1930-s
2) 1930-s - beginning 1990s
3) Beginning of 1990-s till this time.
The first period contributed us the first matryoshka and created a wide verity of different types of dolls.
The matryoshka of Sergiev Posad has its own peculiarities: its top part flows smoothly into thicker lower part: it is painted with gouache and has a varnish surface. In spite of, or perhaps because of the popularity of the matryoshkas of Sergiev Posad, matryoshka-making center started to spring up in Russia.
matryoshka contained The biggest72 pieces; it was 1 m high and had a diameter. This unique doll was made in 1970 and was dedicated to birthday of Soviet communist leader Lenin.
The first matryoshka was made in Polkhovsky Maidan in 1930-s, as other goods in that time the doll was made by poker work.
2) 1930-s – beginning 1990s
3) Beginning of 1990-s till this time.