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Presentation of Maxim Artsinovich’s gift to the
State Hermitage Museum It has become a tradition to present one of the museum’s most interesting gifts at the end of the year. This time the gift is collection of works by contemporary Saint Petersburg gemstone carving artists, presented by the collector and patron of the arts Maxim Artsinovich. Gemstone carving art, which became famous through the works by craftsmen of Carl Faberge'’s atelier, has taken on a new life in Saint Petersburg after almost a hundred years. By the beginning of the 21st century, a whole school had been established with its own features, different trends and creative exploration. Many artists appeared who could carve different stone compositions, figures, flowers... One group of artists, with their own individual style, quickly stood out. They were Evgeny Morozov, Gennady Pylin, Sergey Shimansky, Slava Tulupov, Sergey Stankevich, Alexander Levental and Alexander Kornilov. Their first works in the 1990s demonstrated their understanding that gemstone carving was an art form in itself. These artists expressed their ideas through small forms, creating figures which retained their philosophical content and reflected the world view at the end of the 20th century. Their elegant and refined works fully revealed the ability to work with forms and figures and to reveal the natural beauty of coloured stones. Among the exhibits is one of Evgeny Morozov’s most famous works, a cane, with a head in the shape of mushroom made from moss agate, Sergey Shimansky’s Jester on a Dandelion made from beautiful rauch topaz crystal, a whole number of works by Gennady Pylin, including figures of wolfmen (Wolfman) and cat women (Beast) which make a conceptual pair, the composition Fish and a nephrite Frog by Slava Tulupov, one of the main representations of the Petersburg school, Turtle and Rhinoceros by Sergey Stankevich, who was originally a biologist and the humorous Bulldog on a Drum by Alexander Levental. These traditions are being successfully developed by a new generation, although the realism in their work lies in another dimension. As an example, we can mention Praying Mantis and Babylon Snail by Anton Ananiev. Maxim Artsinovich also has a great deal of respect for the oldest European gem stone carving school in Idar-Oberstein (Germany). One of the leading masters of this school is Patrick Dreher, whose work Snail (2009) the collector also included in his gift to the Hermitage.
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