Since Peter the Great, national Russian art has lost its original character, but the old original foundations have not disappeared - they have survived in the depths of the people to this day. Individual sensitive artists, and after them public organizations, were able to discover living beauty in original Russian art and set about reviving it with great perseverance.
The living center of this revival in Moscow is the Handicraft Museum of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo. It is located in Leontievsky lane, between Tverskaya and Nikitskaya, in a small white building, simple and cozy: a porch with pot-bellied squat columns and windows with columnar architraves give a peculiar tone to the whole building. Looking at these two houses, connected by a gallery passage with patterned frames in small windows, you feel the charm of ancient Moscow, when all the buildings were so cozy and beautifully simple.
This house was built several years ago and is designed in the strict style of the middle XVII centuries. The severity of the style is especially favorably set off by comparison with the neighboring building (No. 5, the former printing house of the Mamontovs), built in the 70s of the last century according to the project of arch. Hartman, who was one of the first to develop and apply ancient Russian architectural forms to buildings and thereby laid the foundation for the so-called false Russian style.
More than thirty years ago, the Moscow provincial zemstvo, under the influence of the famous statistical studies of the peasant life of the Moscow province, which was led by the father of Russian zemstvo statistics V.I. Orlov, decided to show at the All-Russian Exhibition (1882) the entire handicraft industry of the Moscow province.
Many thousands of the population of the province feed on handicrafts, and handicrafts have existed here since ancient times.
The exhibition clearly showed that this primordial branch of folk labor and creativity is not up to par: the imperfection of technology, vulgar samples inspired by factory production, and the monotony of products - these are the characteristics of handicraft products. After this general review, the zemstvo needed to come to the aid of the handicraftsmen in their work, give a new direction to their activities and, for greater economic stability, unite the handicraft enterprises of the province.
The center of this new business was the newly organized handicraft museum-shop, which received collections from the exhibition; then credit was opened for handicraftsmen, warehouses were opened in the districts, and attempts were made to market the products and to improve them technically and artistically.
The main merit in this matter belongs to the Moscow provincial zemstvo, but many district zemstvos, for their part, worked in the same direction, and private individuals often came to the rescue with their own means and with their personal participation. Here, with special gratitude, the outstanding activity of Sergei Timofeevich Morozov should be noted.
At the present time, the work of the Moscow Handicraft Museum is so widely posed that it deserves great attention and is an interesting page in the history of Russian culture.
In order to achieve its main goals - delivering cheap credit to handicraftsmen and the most profitable sale of their products - the museum has spread a whole network of its institutions over the counties of the province. , agricultural tools), workshops (brush, lace) and, finally, an art-carpentry and carving workshop-school in Sergiev Posad, the original and only place in Russia for handicraft toy production. When arranging workshops, the zemstvo, of course, does not lose sight of the educational goals: it strives to develop the taste of the handicraftsman on the artistic samples of various products and at the same time acquaint him with improved methods of work and the best materials. But the ultimate goal of the zemstvos is to develop craftsmen from handicraftsmen who are capable of independently and correctly carrying on their business.
Therefore, the zemstvo, through the museum, in every possible way promotes the emergence of cooperative organizations in every handicraft industry and, when they arise and acquire economic stability, transfers their workshops, warehouses, etc. into their hands.
So, at present, cooperative institutions have already arisen and are working very successfully: a warehouse-consumer society in the village. Bolshiye Vyazemy (near the station of Golitsino, Alexander[ovskaya] railway, Zvenigorod[sky] district), a consumer society in the village of Sobakin (brush makers), the Marfinskaya blacksmith and locksmith artel, the Nazarevskaya artel (Vereisky district) of counters (producing bills ) and many others.
The largest organization of this kind is the "Society for Mutual Assistance of Handicraftsmen" in Troitsky Posad (since 1906), which has its own library, workshop, shop and bank; all these institutions are located in their own large stone house.
Being the center of handicraft organizations of the province, the museum performs a very important, responsible and complex work: on the one hand, everything that is worked out by handicraftsmen is sold through it, and on the other hand, it acts as a leader directing the whole handicraft business. The museum makes sure that handicrafts are constantly progressing in terms of technical and artistic.
The museum fulfills its first purpose through a permanent shop, in which it receives their products from handicraftsmen, and warehouses; takes care of the sale of these products, both retail and wholesale, in Russia and abroad, and supplies handicraftsmen with the best material for their productions.
The store has for sale absolutely everything that handicraftsmen produce, and for the needs of wholesalers, a permanent exhibition of samples has been arranged in it, according to which it is possible to make orders to handicraftsmen through the museum.
The museum's business is already so firmly established that its success among Russian buyers is enormous. Every year its turnover is growing, reaching an impressive figure - half a million.
But handicrafts go hand in hand with material success. This side of the museum's activities is perhaps the most brilliant page in the history of Russian applied art and folk art. The zemstvo managed to inscribe this page thanks to a group of artists who appreciated the beauty of ancient Russian products.
In the 80s of the last century around Savva I. and El. Gr. Mamontovs in their estate Abramtsevo (Dmitrov[ c whom] county) an art circle was born, which included Repin, V.D. Polenov, E.D. Polenova, V.M. Vasnetsov and many others. This circle must be considered the ancestor of the revival of the Russian art industry in general and the handicraft industry in particular.
E.D. Polenova and E.G. Mamontov, carried away by the beauty and deep artistry of Russian folk carvings, which still survived in some places in our north, began to collect and bring them to Abramtsevo with love and perseverance.
This collection of carved arcs, ancient yokes, endings, as well as embroideries, prints, etc. from the northern and middle Russian provinces gave a powerful impetus to the work of E.D. Polenova, and at the same time E.G. Mamontova had the idea to set up a handicraft workshop in recreating these artistic samples in new handicraft works. The workshop was opened in Abramtsevo, and E.D. was its artistic director. Polenova, who at one time completely devoted herself to this work. The Abramtsevo handicraft workshop, which is still operating today, has produced a long range of wooden art products, which exude genuine, unfading beauty.
At the same time, another workshop appeared in the wooded area of the Smolensk province, in the village of Talashkino (the estate of Prince Tenisheva), headed by the artist S.V. Malyutin, who is equally fascinated by the beauty of ancient Russian art. In Talashkino, not only the products of the workshop, but also the workshop itself and other buildings reproduce the spirit of ancient Russian fairy tale motifs. The theatre, house, workshops against the backdrop of pine forests make up a charming fairy-tale group.
The appearance of these two deeply original artistic centers of Russian applied art, the fascination of their leaders with Russian ornaments and their attempts to restore the vanishing charm of carved wooden products, also captivate other artists, outlining the path that living handicraft production must inevitably follow. And, indeed, following them, a number of other similar workshops are springing up in various parts of Russia.
This artistic trend, of course, captured the Moscow Handicraft Museum, which invited one of the pioneers of this movement, N.D. Bartram, to the heads of the artistic part.
The news about the interesting products of Russian handicraftsmen penetrates more and more abroad through exhibitions, and, finally, at the exhibition of 1900 in Paris, these works, which were a huge success, finally strengthen their reputation. This success of the joint work of the Russian artist and the Russian handicraftsman is so strong that even fakes of Russian handicrafts appeared abroad, and the samples sent by the Handicraft Museum to the famous Leipzig Mass (fair) contributed to lively relations with the largest foreign markets.
Now the museum has trade relations not only with France, England, Holland and Belgium, but even with America.
Such success in the activities of the Moscow Museum draws the attention of other zemstvos to it and lays the foundation for the unification of many zemstvos around the museum in the development of handicrafts; even now it is the center not only for the Moscow zemstvos, but also for a number of others (Poltava, Tver, Novotorzhsky, Vyatka, Vologda, etc.).
These Zemstvos are based on the same principles as the Moscow Handicraft Museum, i.e. originality and artistry of products.
The artistic side of these products is of great importance for their future. Only aesthetic appearance, along with technical perfection, will create a future for them and, at the same time, educating the handicraftsman, will again fill our village, which has already dried up in this respect, with artistic beauty.
Therefore, the handicraft museum takes care of attracting a number of artists to its work, commissions them to design products and, in general, tries in every possible way to promote the correct development of the artistic side of the handicraft business.
But the museum still considers the main driving force in this matter to be the contact of the handicraftsman with the authentic old works of Russian masters, who did not even have a clue about vulgar factory products.
For several years the museum has been busy collecting ancient works: carvings, embroideries, prints, drawings, toys, etc. All this, covered with original beauty, is given as a motive for new handicraft works.
A visit to the Handicraft Museum, in addition to getting acquainted with the curious side of the activities of the Moscow Zemstvo to help the population, is also of historical and artistic interest.
Entering the museum, we will go up the tower stairs to the second floor, into a vast hall - a museum of samples - and go around it from right to left.
The entire right side of the entrance is occupied by woodcarving in various forms. There are caskets, and a number of women's styling, rubels, rolling pins and even a whole casing from the window of a peasant's hut. All this is very old work - XVII and the first half XVIII Art., - from which it is difficult to break away. A window trim with shutters work XVII c., at the next wall, leads directly to admiration for the ornament, carving and especially the bas-relief under the window, which depicts Gamayun, the prophetic bird.
Let's turn right, into a small room, and we will find ourselves in some kind of fabulous teremok: a table, chairs, walls, buckets, tubs, candlesticks - all this is covered with charming carvings. But this is not a fabulous tower, this is a remnant of the former folk beauty, once spilled throughout our north and partly in central Russia. Now all this has disappeared almost everywhere, with the exception of some remote deaf corners.
The middle of the large hall is occupied by samples of toys, both modern and ancient. Here is also a collection of prints and embroideries - another already disappearing branch of folk art - and a collection of handicraft work that has already disappeared - authentic old popular prints with the hero Eruslan and Sirins and Alkonosts, these ancient fairy-tale birds of joy and sadness.
Impressed by the beauty of folk art, we descend into the hallway. On weekdays we will see here Armenians and undercoats - these are handicraftsmen who came for this or that advice, for this or that help. And in this communication of the village with the cultural zemstvo institution is the guarantee of its better future and its artistic revival.
The publication and references were prepared by L.V. Badya: Published in: Around Moscow: Walks around Moscow and its artistic and educational institutions / edited by N.A. Geinike, N.S. Elagina, E.A. Efimova, I.I. Schitz. - M.: Edition of M. and S. Sabashnikovs, 1917. - S.434-440.
At this exhibition, the handicraftsmen of the Russian provinces for the first time acted as independent industrialists, and their products widely represented a specific part of the traditional artistic culture.
In 1885, the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo opened the Commercial and Industrial Museum of Handicrafts, which was originally located on Znamenka in the house of Lepeshkina. Exhibits from the Moscow province from the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition of 1882 were transferred there. The tasks of the zemstvo museum were formulated as follows: familiarizing the public with handicrafts, promoting sales, improving craft techniques and improving product samples. The museum operated a warehouse that accepted products from handicraftsmen for the purpose of commission sales.
Morozov Sergey Timofeevich (1860-1944) - a representative of the famous Morozov family, a graduate of Moscow University, devoted most of his life to helping handicraftsmen. In 1888, the zemstvo, considering the issue of the museum's activities, found that its work was mainly reduced to trading operations. Under the provincial zemstvo council, a handicraft commission was created, which included S.T. Morozov. c In 1890, he became the head of the museum, transferred it to Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street. According to his project, the museum, in order to "reorganize the labor activity of handicraftsmen in accordance with changing social and economic conditions," began to train handicraftsmen in demonstration workshops, including through a network of its institutions in the counties. In 1903, he built a new building at his own expense, designed by the architect S.U. Solovyov in Leontievsky lane, 7. In 1911, a store was added to the three-story building. Morozov was in charge of the museum until 1897. After that, he was elected an honorary trustee of the museum, he continued to lead it and methodically improve its activities until 1925.
Bartram Nikolai Dmitrievich(1873-1931) - artist , he was in charge of the "Museum of Samples" - a special artistic and experimental laboratory of the Handicraft Museum. The department was engaged in collecting exhibits, popularizing crafts, contacts with handicraftsmen, organizing exhibitions, developing samples of products for crafts.He taught at the handicraft workshops of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo in 1907-1916. The organizer and first director of the first toy museum in Russia, which grew out of the department of the Handicraft Museum (now the Artistic and Pedagogical Museum of Toys of the Russian Academy of Education, Sergiev Posad).
Museum of Folk Art named after S.T. Morozova (MNI) is one of the oldest museums in Moscow. It was founded in 1885. Initially, it was called the Commercial and Industrial Museum of Handicrafts of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo, then it became the Museum of Folk Art at the Research Institute of Art Industry (NIIKhP), which was created on the basis of the museum itself. The museum moved to its current building in September 1903. For more than a century of history, museum areas have been significantly reduced. As a result, the Museum of Folk Art, which in 1999 became a department of the All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art (VMDPNI), occupies only part of the building, which previously belonged entirely to the museum. This is a brick two-story building with an attic and rectangular halls on the first and second floors.
This building was added in 1911 to the main part of the museum. The building was purchased from A.I. Mamontov specially for the Handicraft Museum and rebuilt in the pseudo-Russian style by the industrialist and philanthropist Sergei Timofeevich Morozov. In 1911 S.T. Morozov, on the site of the old garden, made an extension for a museum and a handicraft store. The project of this part of the building with pseudo-Russian style facades was made by architects V.N. Bashkirov and A.E. Erichson.
On the first floor of the extension there was a shop for handicrafts (folk art) crafts, and on the second floor there was an exposition. I had to buy pockets for stands on the side.
When the Museum of Folk Art became a department of VMDPNI, architects-restorers carried out a thorough study of the building. A question arose about preserving the ceiling painting in the hall on the first floor. Previously, it was known that the painting was made in the late 1930s. There was evidence that the entire hall was covered with paintings, but the painting remained only on the ceiling.
The study showed that the overall composition stylistically consists of two types of painting: grisaille, imitating brass casting in the spirit of Roman grotesques, and polychrome, in color and pattern of floral ornament, tending to folk paintings. Grotesque patterns are painted on a sticky light-ocher background in brown and yellow-ocher tones.
Here, 6-7 tones are used in accordance with the rules of painting in the grisaille technique, in this case, imitating reliefs. On the light background of the frieze, stylized palmettes, stems and leaves of acanthus are filled with grisaille. The frieze itself is decorated along the edges with a chain of small beads imitating classical plaster moldings. On the sides of the grisaille are depicted rectilinear narrow garlands of short green twigs, leaves, as well as large light, carmine and scarlet buds, reminiscent of rose flowers.
At the points where the chandeliers are attached, the picturesque frieze is interrupted by round rosettes with a blue inner field bordered by polychrome flower garlands. The four corner rosettes are larger than those on the sides of the rectangle.
The central rosette of the plafond is composed of pictorial elements similar in style to the frieze painting, but with a slightly different pattern. The center is a five-pointed large star of bright blue color, bordered along the contour by a chain of picturesque beads and having concave sides. Around the place where the chandelier is attached is a grisaille rosette imitating white stucco. Between the elliptical petals of the rosette, picturesque stylized plant motifs of branches and leaves are placed. Each of the five segments-petals, filled with grisaille, ends at the edges with a bouquet of roses in multicolor execution. The frieze and the central rosette are painted with tempera and glue paints.
The ornaments are painted with tempera, the background fragments of the painting are painted with adhesive paint. All images in tempera are filled with dense painting - body technique.
The ceiling plafond with a bright painting around the perimeter of the frieze looks inconsistent with the surface of the walls, painted in dark gray tones with oil paint. The painting of the plafond clearly contrasts with the gloomy painting of the walls.
An article by L.N. Goncharova, dedicated to the participation of craftsmen in the painting of public buildings in the 1930s. In the appendix to it, the author cites an unpublished, preserved in the manuscript list of works made by masters of folk arts and crafts, which was compiled by the museum employee - the famous artist E.G. Telyakovsky.
According to the materials of the article by E.G. Telyakovsky, written in 1939, the ceiling was painted in the same year by artists V.D. PuzanovMolev, K.V. Kosterin, A.I. Novoselov, Beztemyannikov - famous miniaturists from Kholuy.
The murals date back to the time when masters of folk arts and crafts tried to reorient themselves from chamber miniature painting, and in some cases from icon painting, to making monumental pictorial decorations of a secular nature.
When studying the literature, it became clear that the walls, the upper piers between the large arched windows in the hall on the ground floor were also covered with murals, which were later painted over with dull gray oil paint, and perhaps were knocked down together with plaster.
The hall has a rectangular layout. Total area - 291 sq. m, ceiling height - more than five meters. On three walls - northern, western and southern - there are large windows with arched completion of openings overlooking Leontievsky lane, the courtyard and the passage that separates the neighboring land ownership. Obviously, the alleged painting in narrow piers alternated with large window openings, and each wall had a complete composition. And together they were united by a common color, similar plant motifs, size and rhythm.
It was decided to carry out a trial opening in the thickness of the painting layers to search for preserved painting fragments. It turned out that under a thick layer of paint on all the walls there is one way or another preserved painting. It became clear that its restoration and reconstruction is quite real. The general design concept of the hall was determined: the brightness of the plafond and the multi-colored richness of the picturesque decor created, together with the exposition of works of folk crafts, the general mood of the holiday.
Previously, and it was thought that always, in this intricate house in the pseudo-Russian style there was a Museum of handicrafts. And it so happened that this museum was the only one nearby that I had not been to. In those days, this street was called Stanislavsky Street. 20 years ago, in 1994, the street was given back its previous name - Leontievsky Lane. And just now I decided to look at the exposition of this museum. A huge disappointment awaited me - only one sign remained from the museum. I could not believe it and wandered around this building for a long time in search of some secret entrance. Finally, a security guard came out of the carved wooden doors and explained that the museum had not been here for a long time. The famous collection of the famous philanthropist Morozov was transferred to the All-Russian Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts, dispersed and mostly lost. This is such a sad story, but I read that in 1994, 50 years after Morozov's death, a number of government decisions were made to recreate Morozov's heritage in the form of a Museum of Folk Art and preserve it in a historic building in Leontievsky Lane.
1. The history of the creation of this museum is as follows. In the XVII-XVIII centuries, the place between the current Tverskaya and Bolshaya Nikitskaya streets was an aristocratic area. The two-storied chambers, built of stone in Sheremetyevsky Lane (now Leontievsky Lane, 7), were owned by the steward of Peter the Great A. Golovin. In 1871, the building became the property of Anatoly Mamontov, who was the brother of the entrepreneur and philanthropist Savva Mamontov.
2. Under the new owner, a publishing house was opened on the property, as well as a printing house, for which a special room was built according to the project of the architect V.A. Hartman (today Leontievsky lane, house 5). Mamontov's publishing house was engaged in the production of children's books, the pages of which were illustrated by such artists as Viktor Vasnetsov, Valentin Serov and Sergey Malyutin.
3. At the beginning of the 20th century, the property was divided into two parts, and the right plot with the current house No. 7 became the property of the industrialist and collector S.T. Morozov. Sergei Timofeevich was a great connoisseur of folk crafts and decided to create a museum of folk crafts in this house. He ordered a project for the reconstruction of the house to the famous architect S.U. Solovyov. The old chambers were given the appearance of an old Russian tower.
4. This appearance has survived to this day.
5. Morozov's next step was the donation of the building to the Handicraft Museum, which had previously been located on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street and had been leading its history since 1885. The basis of the collection was the exhibits of the handicraft department of the Commercial and Industrial Exhibition of 1882 in Moscow, objects of art crafts of the late XIX - early XX centuries. The new museum began to replenish with masterpieces of folk art. In 1911, the building was enlarged with an additional building, where a store with various handicrafts of Russian folk crafts was opened.
4. The annex was erected on the initiative of S.T. Morozov, and the project was prepared by architects Adolf Erichson and Vasily Bashkirov. The porch with barrel columns was built by the architect S.U. Solovyov.
6. A weather vane depicting "Bogorodsk blacksmiths" was installed on the roof of the building. According to stories, a ceramic fireplace made according to Vrubel's sketch has been preserved in the lobby. It was impossible to get inside the premises.
7. After the October Revolution, the handicraft museum was renamed the Museum of Folk Art. Under various names, the museum continued to work on the development of folk crafts. Sergei Timofeevich himself was left at the Museum as a handicraft consultant, but in 1925 he emigrated to France. S.T. Morozov died in 1944 and was buried in the Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery in Paris.
8. The handicraft museum has made a huge contribution to the preservation and development of Russian art crafts. Since the 1910s, its employees not only participated in various exhibitions and fairs, but also organized them. Here is a memorial plaque at the entrance.
9. But the museum at Leontievsky Lane, house number 7 has not been around for 15 years.
10. The plate once again reminds that the object is protected by the state.
16. Passage to the courtyard of the estate.
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18. This is the view in the backyard. I have no words! Nearby, close to the historic building, there is some kind of construction going on.
19. Gallery connecting the two buildings of the house number 7 - the former Museum of handicrafts.
20. Some incomprehensible, obviously later, structures on the roof.
22. And now, for some reason, in the historical building of the Museum of Handicrafts there is an ensemble "Birch". This is such a strange and very sad story.
23. In the two-volume "Architectural Monuments of Moscow", publishing house "Iskusstvo", 1989, two photographs of this house are given. The first shows the façade of the XVIII building. From the book - "At the beginning of the 19th century, a vestibule, pantries and cellars were located on the first floor, and only in the second - living quarters."
24. "In 1900, the estate was bought by S.T. Morozov with the aim of establishing a Handicraft Museum in the main house, rebuilt for this in 1902-1903 by S.U. Solovyov. Part of the house from the side of the courtyard was built on, and the facade along street was dismantled and erected along a new line with decoration in the neo-Russian style.
25. "In 1911, V.N. Bashkirov added a retail space to the museum building, which housed a shop for the sale of handicrafts." This can be seen on the first floor plan. It looks like there is some construction work going on right at the site of the extension behind the green shelter!
The concept of “handicraft industry” in the second half of the 11th–early 20th centuries. was familiar and familiar to contemporaries, since it determined a very significant area of social production, economy and national culture. Therefore, such definitions as "handicraft specialist", "handicraft industry figure" were so common. Sergey Timofeevich Morozov (1860–1944) was precisely a figure in the handicraft industry, one of the most authoritative people in this area in Russia. It is difficult to say what attracted a young man to this area, a graduate of the Faculty of Law, who had recently left the walls of Moscow University, which prompted him to devote most of his life to helping handicraftsmen. Of course, family traditions played a significant role in this. In one of the publications about Morozov in the Bulletin of the Handicraft Industry, it was noted: “S.T. Morozov brought the traditions of the famous Savva Morozov manufacturing company to the handicraft business. Her first factory in Orekhovo-Zuyevo did not interrupt and still does not interrupt relations with handicraftsmen. The number of the latter ... exceeds 100 thousand people and more than doubles the number of factory workers. In addition to the traditions of entrepreneurship, the Morozov family also had strong traditions of charity, patronage, and, more broadly, support for spiritual and cultural undertakings. Perceiving this, Sergei Morozov at the end of the 1880s turned to handicraft business - but not with philanthropic goals, but with the intention of reorganizing the labor activity of handicraftsmen in accordance with changing social and economic conditions.
Apparently, communication and cooperation with professors of Moscow University, economists A.I. Chuprov and N.A. Karyshev - like Sergei Timofeevich, they were elected in 1888 to the commission of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo to develop a plan for systematic activities to promote handicrafts. While working in this commission, Morozov preferred the real thing, embodied in the Handicraft Museum, to the usual talk about the fate of the handicraft industry.
Handicraft museums in Russia at the end of the 11th century became a special form, a kind of variant of the European art and industrial museum. The objects of activity of these museums were peasant crafts, in relation to which museums performed not only collecting functions, but were called upon to play an active role in the development and improvement of handicraft production. The emergence of handicraft museums was associated with the reforms of the 1860s and 70s, aimed at raising the standard of living of the peasant population, including with the help of subsidiary crafts. The idea of creating such a museum institution in Russia originated in St. Petersburg in the 1870s, but Moscow got ahead of the capital's initiative. In 1885, the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo opened the Commercial and Industrial Museum of Handicrafts. His organization completed a certain stage in the study of the crafts of the Moscow province, undertaken in connection with the preparations for the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition of 1882 in Moscow. At this exhibition, the handicraftsmen of the Russian provinces for the first time acted as independent industrialists, and their products widely represented a specific area of traditional artistic culture.
At the end of the exhibition, the collections of handicrafts of the Moscow province were transferred to create a Zemstvo museum, the tasks of which were formulated as follows: familiarizing the public with handicrafts, promoting sales, improving the technique of crafts and improving product samples. Initially, the museum was located on Znamenka in Lepeshkina's house (now the Library of Sciences of the Academy of Sciences). Almost simultaneously with the opening, a warehouse was created at the museum, which accepted products from handicraftsmen for the purpose of commission sales.
A few years later, in 1888, the Zemstvo, considering the issue of the museum's activities, found that its work was mainly reduced to trading operations, while other tasks fell into oblivion. It was decided to create the handicraft commission mentioned above under the zemstvo council, which included S.T. Morozov. He immediately got involved in the problems of the museum, developed the foundations for transforming its activities. According to his project, the very nature of the museum institution changed - it became educational. The training of handicraftsmen was supposed to be carried out through a system of workshops - branches of the museum, which were initially planned to be mobile, and ultimately created as stationary zemstvo training centers in the places of the most developed crafts. Morozov proposes a number of measures to develop technical assistance to handicraftsmen, to expand sales based on the acceptance of orders, including from other provinces, affirms the need for lending to handicraftsmen and supplying them with raw materials through the museum.
Zemstvo agrees with the new direction in the work of the museum and in 1890 S.T. Morozov accepts the post of head of the Handicraft Museum. In the same year, he moved the museum to a more convenient location on Bolshaya Nikitskaya (now the building of the re-film cinema), and in 1903 he built a new building at his own expense, designed by the architect S.U. Solovyov in Leontievsky lane, 7. In 1911, a hall was added to the three-story building to accommodate a store. Morozov remained in the position of head until 1897. After that, he was elected an honorary trustee of the museum and continued to lead it and methodically improve its activities.
The Moscow Handicraft Museum is an interesting institution. Its fate reflected such diverse tendencies at the turn of the 11th–20th centuries that it is very difficult to distinguish between the positive and negative results of the museum's activities. Here, the European structure of the art and industrial museum was combined with charity, entrepreneurship - with a sincere love for the country, for Russian history, art projects of the "Russian style" with modern innovations. In this complex, turning point in life, an intelligent Russian family, noble or merchant, became a kind of standard for many undertakings, to which the preservation of the national cultural space was oriented.
In 1880–1890 a new position is being formed and strengthened in relation to folk art, which has found expression in the creative views and activities of artists belonging to the Abramtsevo art circle, as well as grouped around the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. S.T. Morozov was close to them, he attracted many of the artists to work in the Handicraft Museum - these were V.M. I am. Vasnetsov, S.S. Verb, N.Ya. Davydova, M.V. Yakunchikova, A.Ya. Golovin, V.D. Polenov. To decorate the new museum building, Morozov invites K.A. Korovin, who repeatedly decorated handicraft pavilions at art and industrial exhibitions. Morozov's financial support meant a lot to the artist V.I. Sokolov, a talented student of Polenov, who studied at the Moscow School of Painting, and later, on the recommendation of Morozov, worked in the zemstvo workshop of Sergiev Posad.
The views of S.T. Morozov on handicrafts and his system of assistance to them took shape over 25 years, undergoing certain changes. Morozov accepted the conviction of the artists of the Abramtsevo circle about the great environmental significance of folk art in the modern world. The original forms and images of folk art seemed to the artists of that era to be the ideal embodiment of national foundations in artistic culture. Based on the study and use of these forms, according to their ideas, a new subject environment should have been created, and at the same time, the revival of the artistic traditions of folk art itself was implied. Morozov largely follows this program - it is in connection with it, as well as with the Old Believer traditions of the family, that his interest in the art of ancient Rus' arises. At the same time, Morozov went much further in comprehending the phenomenon that interested him, managing to embrace it as a whole as an urgent problem of Russian life. It moves from public interest and private activities in relation to handicrafts to a system of promoting their development. S.T. Morozov tried to identify patterns in the development of fisheries and direct assistance precisely to key points, but in such a way that the fishery itself would operate more efficiently.
Assistance to handicrafts was carried out not only with the very limited funds of the zemstvo budget, but with private donations, and S.T. himself was the first among the donors. Morozov. The museum also included capital donated by V.A. Morozova. Starting from his first steps in the museum, Sergei Timofeevich constantly invested his money where it was required to implement his plans. So the first zemstvo training workshops were arranged at his personal expense - a basket workshop near the Golitsino station in 1891, a toy workshop in Sergiev Posad in 1892. Morozov built buildings for these and other workshops, at his own expense he sent a specialist abroad to study the technique of basket weaving. At the same time, he was fundamentally against charity in this matter: it was just that his plans were extensive, and he saw that the system of assistance to the fisheries was not implemented without his personal participation.
In the 1900s, the Handicraft Museum entered a new stage in its history. S.T. Morozov, at the II Congress of Figures on Handicraft Industry in 1910, proposed a radical program for the reorganization of the handicraft business of the Moscow Zemstvo. First of all, the reorganization of the Handicraft Museum was envisaged, three independent divisions were created in it: the Bureau for the Promotion of Crafts, the Trade Department and the "Museum of Samples". Each of the subdivisions performed its part of the general fishery support program. Morozov's special hopes and plans were associated with the "Museum of Samples" - a special artistic and experimental laboratory, headed by the artist N.D. Bartram. The functions of this department included collection work, popularization of handicrafts, contacts with craftsmen, organization of exhibitions and, most importantly, the development of samples of products for handicrafts. A fundamentally important direction in the work of the Handicraft Museum Morozov and Bartram considered the search for new forms of development for handicrafts as one of the branches of the domestic art industry. Artistically the brightest centers of crafts are now the objects of creative support of the Handicraft Museum.
One of the primary tasks of the S.T. Morozov considered an improvement in the supply of handicraftsmen with samples and drawings, with the help of which handicrafts were improved. In this regard, the collection of the Handicraft Museum seems to him insufficient from an artistic and historical point of view. He begins to replenish it at his own expense, collecting monuments of Russian antiquity - arts and crafts of the 17th -11th centuries. These objects, concentrating in themselves the general aesthetic properties of Russian traditional culture, served primarily as models for artists who developed sketches of new products on their basis. S.T. Morozov and the staff of the Handicraft Museum sought, along with the economic strengthening of crafts, to preserve the features of handicrafts that are so attractive to artists and the intelligentsia - their national character, the traditions of ancient culture preserved in them. N.D. Bartram and the artists who worked with him did not just "improve" handicrafts - they purposefully searched for a new function and a new cultural content of traditional handicrafts, combined with the improvement of their consumer properties. At the same time, it was extremely important for them to preserve manual labor, which placed handicraft art products above machine ones.
Reformed according to the project of S.T. Morozov The Handicraft Museum comprehensively covered, therefore, all the activities of the Zemstvo in the field of handicraft industry.
Another important aspect of Morozov's program is the support of cooperation in the fields and the creation of production artels of handicraftsmen. Morozov organizes a credit fund for the cooperative movement, transferring 100,000 rubles to the Zemstvo for this purpose. The fund was named after S.T. Morozov, management was carried out by a special committee that issued loans in accordance with approved rules. Among the first artels created with the support of the fund were the Vyazemsky society, the association of handicrafts-weavers, the Khotkovskaya artel of carvers. The amount of assistance to handicraft artels from the fund. S.T. Morozov was so great that by 1913 the funds were exhausted and the Zemstvo applied for a loan to replenish the fund.
For many years S.T. Morozov actually headed the zemstvo work in the field of handicraft industry. He enjoyed a reputation as an experienced and knowledgeable person, and almost all of his ideas were embodied in the decisions of the zemstvo provincial assembly. Morozov's activity was a subject for study and imitation in other provinces of Russia - it was called the "Moscow system". Following the example of the Moscow Handicraft Museum at the end of the 11th – beginning of the 20th century. handicraft museums are being set up in other provinces rich in crafts: Vyatka, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Vologda, Perm. Thus, thanks to the initiatives and practical activities of Morozov, a special type of museum institution is emerging in Russia, the tasks and principles of which were common to central and local, provincial and county museums. Museums of this type were in constant contact with crafts, with craftsmen, becoming for them a specialized intermediary in the market and at the same time a center for arts and crafts education.
On December 13, 1914, Moscow celebrated the 25th anniversary of S.T. Morozov in the field of promoting the handicraft industry. This event was marked by publications in magazines, which testified to the wide recognition of Morozov, his authority as a public figure.
After 1917, the work of handicraft museums throughout Russia was curtailed, only the Moscow Handicraft Museum managed to preserve its specificity and structure. The reason for this was the export interests of the young Soviet state, for which crafts were an important item of trade. S.T. Morozov, who lost his fortune and his business, remains faithful to what he has been doing for many years. In 1919 he published the article "The Significance of Beauty in Human Life and Beauty in Handicraft Industry". Morozov remained a respected person in the museum, and the museum continued to be his home, where he kept his office. He participated in the discussion of the development of crafts and the activities of the museum, in particular, he spoke at a meeting of the fine arts section of the State Academy of Artistic Sciences in 1924. In the same year, he received an offer to take a consultant position in the museum. In 1925, at the insistence of S.T. Morozov leaves for France, where he spends the rest of his life. Sergei Timofeevich Morozov was one of the most worthy people of his time. His contribution to the culture of Russia is extremely great. In 1916, the "Herald of the handicraft industry" wrote that S.T. Morozov “during his handicraft work, probably gave more than one million rubles to handicraft work, but how much he gave him souls and thoughts - this is better than us in due time will be able to appreciate an impartial historian of handicraft business.”
One of them - an associate of Peter the Great Autonomous Golovin, who served in the rank of steward - owned two-story chambers built of stone in Sheremetevsky Lane (now - Leontievsky Lane, 7).
In 1871, the building became the property of Anatoly Mamontov, who was the brother of Savva Mamontov, an entrepreneur and philanthropist. Under the new owner, a publishing house was opened on the property, as well as a printing house. For the latter, they even built a special room designed by the architect V.A. Hartman (today - Leontievsky lane, house 5).
Mamontov's publishing house was engaged in the production of children's books, the pages of which were illustrated by such artists as Viktor Vasnetsov, Valentin Serov and Sergey Malyutin.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the property was divided into two parts, and the right plot with the current house No. 7 in Leontievsky Lane became the property of the industrialist and collector S.T. Morozov.
Sergei Timofeevich was a passionate connoisseur of handicrafts. It was this passion of his that predetermined the history and fate of the ancient building.
First of all, Morozov ordered a house reconstruction project from a well-known architect. The old chambers were given the appearance of an old Russian tower. This image has survived unchanged to this day.
The next step of Sergei Timofeevich was the transfer of the renovated building as a gift to the Handicraft Museum, which at that time was located on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street and began its history in 1885. It is interesting to know that it was in it, in 1898, that the beautiful matryoshka doll was first presented to the general public, painted by the artist Sergei Milyutin.
New halls began to fill with new masterpieces of folk art. Visitors could see carved spinning wheels and yokes, as well as sculptures of various birds and animals.
In 1911, the building in Leontievsky Lane, house 7 grew with an additional volume, where a store was opened, offering visitors to the Handicraft Museum various products and handicrafts of Russian folk crafts.
A few words about the architecture of the extension.
It was erected on the initiative of S.T. Morozov, and the project was carried out by architects and. The entrance is decorated in the form of a porch in the "Old Russian" style with its characteristic barrel-columns. The roof of the building is crowned with a weather vane, decorated with a toy image. In the lobby, a ceramic fireplace strikes with its beauty, a sketch of which was made by the artist Mikhail Vrubel.
The handicraft museum has made a huge contribution to the preservation and development of Russian art crafts. Since the 1910s, its employees not only participated in various exhibitions and fairs, but also organized them.
Today, in the building at 7 Leontievsky Lane, there are
