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Matryoshka doll

Russian nested wooden toy

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A set of matryoshkas consists of a wooden figure, which separates at the middle, top from bottom, to reveal a smaller figure of the same sort inside, which has, in turn, another figure inside of it, and so on.

The first Russian nested doll set was made during the 1890s by woodturning craftsman and wood carver Vasily Zvyozdochkin from a design by Sergey Malyutin, who was a folk crafts painter at Abramtsevo. The dolls continue to be mass-produced to this day. Traditionally, the outer layer is a woman, dressed in a Russian sarafan dress. The figures inside may be of any gender; the smallest, innermost doll is typically a baby turned from a single piece of wood. Much of the artistry is in the painting of each doll, which can be very elaborate. The dolls often follow a theme; these themes vary from traditional forms, such as abstract Russian peasant beauties, to fairy tale characters as well as historical or political figures. In some countries, matryoshka dolls are often referred to as babushka dolls, though they are not known by this name in Russian; babushka (бабушка) means 'grandmother; old woman'.

History

The first Russian nested doll set was carved in 1890s at the Children's Education Workshop by Vasily Zvyozdochkin and designed by Sergey Malyutin, who was a folk crafts painter in the Abramtsevo estate of Savva Mamontov, a Russian industrialist and patron of arts. Mamontov's brother, Anatoly Ivanovich Mamontov (1839–1905), created the Children's Education Workshop to make and sell children's toys. The doll set was painted by Malyutin. Malyutin's doll set consisted of eight dolls—the outermost was a mother in a traditional dress holding a red-combed rooster. The inner dolls were her children, girls and a boy, and the innermost a baby. The Children's Education Workshop was closed in the late 1890s, but the tradition of the matryoshka simply relocated to Sergiyev Posad, the Russian city known as a toy-making center since the fourteenth century.

The inspiration for matryoshka dolls is not clear. There have been speculations that Matryoshka dolls may have been inspired by a nesting doll imported from Japan, however there are serious doubts. The Children's Education workshop where Zvyozdochkin was a lathe operator received a five-piece, cylinder-shaped nesting doll featuring Fukuruma (Fukurokuju) in the late 1890s, which is now part of the collection at the Sergiev Posad Museum of Toys. Other East Asian dolls share similarities with matryoshka dolls such as the Kokeshi dolls, originating in Northern Honshū, the main island of Japan, although they cannot be placed one inside another, and the round hollow daruma doll depicting a Buddhist monk. Another possible source of inspiration is the nesting Easter eggs produced on a lathe by Russian woodworkers during the late 19th Century.

Savva Mamontov's wife presented a set of matryoshka dolls at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900, and the toy earned a bronze medal. Soon after, matryoshka dolls were being made in several places in Russia and shipped around the world.

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