Winter

The golden sky meshes with the snowy landscape in a medley of color. Barren trees stand without shivering in the frigid breeze. Rivers frozen over have trapped fish where fishermen saw holes to catch a meal. Homes fill the skyline with smoke billowing from their chimneys as the people inside get ready to conquer the day. All will be quiet until spring when the trees fill in with greenery and the birds come back. Then the snow will recede, the ice will melt, and golden mornings like this will have to mesh themselves with enlivened green landscapes...
This beautiful composition, painted by talented Sergey Kirsanov of Fedoskino, shows a small village located on the bank of the frozen river. We can see a Church and several houses covered with the snow.
The painting of this box has amazing details! Oil-based paint is the main medium used to paint this composition. The palette is very precise, which uses whites, browns and grays to fill in the landscape. To give the effect of diffusing light coming from behind the trees the artist paints over an inlay of mother-of-pearl the sky. The layers are thin and the colors give the inlay its luminescent quality. He also uses a small amount of aluminum powder in the paints for added glow. It is amazing how much details the artist paints on the surface of this box!
The box is made from paper-mache. The exterior is covered with black lacquer and the interior is covered with red color. The composition is framed with a white line as well as another thin white line making the decoration. Same combination of a thick and thin white lines the artist has used to decorate all four sided of the box.
The box has a hinge above the scene and rests on four small rounded foot. Upon completing the work on this piece the artist signs his name at the bottom of the composition.
Fine box!