Tale of a Sleeping Beauty

This story was originally put to pen by French writer Charles Perrault when he published his collection of fairy tales "Stories of Olden Times" in 1697. The French title of the tale was "La belle au bois dormant," which means "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood." The story has since been adopted into various versions in the many countries of the world; in Russia it is known as Sleeping Princess written by A.S. Pushkin. Here we can see the main characters of this fairy-tale: the Sleeping Princess, the Prince who hastens to wake her up, the witch who has enchanted the princess and the fairy who helped to remove evil spell.
On the top left corner we can see the birth of the a Princess,then to the right, the witch who has enchanted the Princess, in the middle of the composition we can see Sleeping Princess and witch to the left from her and Fairy to the right. In the left lower corner, handsome Prince is on the horse and in the right lower corner-happy end, The princess is awake and the young people are happy together.
The artist's palette is diverse and holds a wide range of colors that she uses within this composition. She works in details with gold and aluminum paint that are fine and make the scene radiate with a tremendous glow. But, it is the use of gold leaf that is truly awe inspirational wonder. Multiple sheets of gold leaf are placed as a strategic background and then the artist is free to work their magic in, around and on top of it.
The box is made out of paper-mache. Black lacquer covers the exterior and red lacquer covers the interior of the box. Golden roses decorates the sides of the box. The box has a hinge from the left the composition and rests on four small legs. The artist has written the name of the village Palekh, title and her name at the bottom of the composition.This info is duplicated on the inside surface of the box's lid, with the add of this is Smirnova's art work!