General Toptigin

Maria Gurilyeva is the Master who has painted this tremendous and very detailed composition. 
The box features a scene from the poem "General Toptigin", written by Russian writer Nikolay Nekrasov in the mid-19th century. It is a comic tale about a bear who takes a chaotic ride in a troika. Once a vagrant actor with a bear asks the coachman to take him to the appointed place. The coachman agrees. Driving past the tavern, the coachman and the vagrant actor decide to drop in to have a glass of wine. The bear left in the troika roars, and the scared horses start galloping. The villagers and the inspector of the road station mistake the bear dressed in the general uniform riding in the troika for the general. Everything falls into place when the actor and the coachman catch up with the sledge. 
The palette for this piece contains a wide spectrum of bright and vivid colors. Gold and aluminum paint, applied with extreme precision, details almost every aspect of the composition.
The box is constructed out of high-quality paper-mache. Black lacquer is used to paint the exterior of the box and red lacquer to paint the interior. The box's exterior is decorated with luxuriant gold patterns accented with aluminum. The lid is hinged, and the box rests on a four feet. At the bottom of the scene Gurilyeva has wrote Palekh, 2006, and her name.