Matryoshka Dolls
Russian Nick Knacks – Matryoshka Dolls
I was looking through my china cabinet and noticed I had a couple of Russian nick knacks that I wanted to blog about.
The first is a small set of Matryoshka dolls or Russian Nesting Dolls made out of wood and hand painted in a Santa pattern. Each Santa is holding a candy cane and their heads are encircled in holly wreaths. My set only contains three figures but some sets contain many, many figures. In Russian Matryoshka literally means “little matron”. Matryoshka dolls go back to about 1890. Some sets have inner dolls of children (both boys and girls) and the littlest figure would be the baby.
My trinket case box is made of wood but I am not sure if it is vintage or not. It looks like it is hand engraved with a scene of a Russian village with a church view. It is, also, painted and varnished. The varnish looks rather old and yellowing.
In the lower picture, both pieces were purchased in second hand stores. The uppermost photograph is a magnet that was given to me by my sister.
