Kholmogory Carved Bone

a type of Russian bone carving, now concentrated in the village of Lomonosovo, Kholmogory Raion, Arkhangel’sk Oblast. Articles of Kholmogory carved bone have been known since the 17th century. The basic carving techniques, which evolved in the 18th century, when the craft flourished, include the use of open work ornamentation combined with relief depictions, color engraving, colored foil under the open relief, and tinted bone plates. Objects commonly made included combs, snuff boxes, various other small decorative boxes, furniture faced with bone plates, and goblets.

After suffering a decline during the second half of the 19th century, the crafting of Kholmogory carved bone was developed further in the Soviet period. In 1930 a vocational technical school was founded, and in 1932 the M. I. Lomonosov Kholmogory Bone-carving Artel was organized (now the M. I. Lomonosov Factory for Artistic Bone Carving). Small decorative boxes, cigarette cases, letter openers, compacts, pendants, beads, earrings, and other articles are made, primarily from walrus tusks and ordinary animal bone, but also from the teeth of sperm whales and mammoth tusks.

Master crafsmen have included O. Kh. Dudin (18th century), V. P. Gur’ev, A. S. Gur’ev, G. E. Petrovskii, V. T. Uzykov, P. P. Chernikovich, U. S. Sharypina, A. E. Shtang, V. Ia. Kuznetsov.