Show all images on one page	#005871 Title: Pancake-week Artist: Chistov Sergey Size: 9.5x12.5x2 Size (inches): 3.75x5x0.75 Price : $495 SOLD!

The famous Fedoskino artist, Sergey Chistov, is the author of this stunning box. The box shows how Russian peasants celebrate one of the ancient Russian feasts, which is called "Maslenitsa" or "Pancake-week". This feast is arranged to send off the cold winter and welcome the beginning of warm spring. It usually takes place the week before the Lenten fast. In ancient times Maslenitsa included different magic and religious rites that afterwards transformed into traditional folk customs, such as burning of a man of straw that embodies the winter, baking of sacrificial bread - pancakes, dressing masquerades, various games, driving in a sledge at high speed and many others. In the center of the composition the villagers have arranged completions, one of them climbs up the high pole trying to fetch the samovar attached to the top of it.
The characters are painted in bright red and orange tones of oil paints while the snow and the sky are painted in white and light blue oils. Silver and gold powder is used to highlight the sky and to create brilliance of the characters' costumes.
The box is constructed from paper-mache. Black lacquer is used to paint the exterior of the box while red lacquer completes the interior of the work. The scene is framed with a thin gold line. Two parallel gold lines wrap around the box's sides. The lid is hinged from the left of the scene, and the box rests on a flat bottom. The work is signed with the artist's name, Fedoskino and the year of 2004.