Show all images on one page	#001035 Title: Mushroom Hunt Artist: Sosin Piotr Iliych (1936-2008) Size: 17.5x12.5x5.5 Price : $350 SOLD!

This marvelous composition was created by the famous Mstera artist Pyotr Sosin, whose works are always notable for interesting, original subjects, and this one is no exception. The composition depicts one of the favorite past times in Russia - gathering mushrooms. Men, woman, families and single mushroomers stroll in forest, looking for mushrooms. They got pleasure from fresh forest air and feel excitement and joy finding a mushroom. Later they may fry mushrooms with potatoes or marinate them. Mushrooms are irreplaceable ingredients of the Russian cuisine. A wide variety of dishes are cooked using mushrooms, such as: pickled mushrooms, fried mushrooms, mushroom soup and many others. In the middle of the composition the artist depicts the most popular mushroom in Russia - edible boletus (Russian people call this sort of mushrooms as "white mushrooms").
This composition is very colorful and decorative. It is painted in the traditional for Mstera art colors: green, blue, yellow, red and brown. These contrast colors are successfully matched and well balanced. The usage of contrasting colors, that placed side-by-side, helps to produce a gorgeous mosaic effect. A beautiful example of it can be seen in Sosin's tree canopies. This method is also used to create ripples on the river, to make shapes of multicolored hills, and to show the sharp breaks in the earth on the riverbank. The first thing one notices about Sosin's work is the detail. He uses a traditional Russian style of detailing, which uses repetition of shapes such as blotches, lines, or curves. The characters are also well drawn. Their expressions and gestures are individualized. Someone is glad to find a mushroom, the face of the other one expresses surprise by seeing such a huge mushroom. Sosin creates a multitude of decoration on this piece in gold, aluminum and oil paints. The scene is decorated with simple gold beading, while the edges of the lid are adorned with a flowery pattern of golden filigree highlighted with aluminum. All four sides of the box are decorated with the extremely complex design that is mostly painted in oils. It consists of small arches, dots, flowers, fir twigs and swirling lines. Each arch contains a mushroom. Here the artist depicted the most popular mushrooms found in rural Russia, such as Orange-capped Boletus, Brown-capped Boletus, The Mossiness mushroom, Chanterelle, The Saffron milk cap, Boletus luteus, The Milk mushroom, The Russule, Edible boletus, The Field mushroom, Puff-ball, the Honey Fungus, the Honey Agaric and others. Each corner is adorned with the image of a fir tree.
The box is constructed out of papier-mache. Black lacquer covers the exterior and red lacquer covers the interior of the box. The box has a hinge affixed above the composition and rests on a flat bottom. It is signed with the artist's name, village, title and year (2003).