Russian Nesting Dolls' Origins

The wooden painted doll appeared in Russia in 1890s, the period which saw burgeoning economic and cultural development. It was the time of a growing sense of national identity and interest in Russian culture and art. As part of this general trend, a new artistic current called "Russian style" emerged. The so-called Mamontov circle was among the early centers which advocated the revival of Russian culture.

It was presided over by Savva Mamontov, a Russian industrialist, a patron and connoisseur of arts, who had gathered around him a group of outstanding Russian artists including Repin, Antokolsky, Vasnetsov, Vrubel and others. In his Abramtsevo estate near Moscow, Mamontov built art studios where folk craftsman worked along with professional artists.

The enthusiasts who formed the Mamontov circle engaged in education, art and collection with heavy emphasis on reviving Russian culture, especially the national folk traditions. Among the items of folk art they collected peasant toys.
The development of the folk peasant toy was a major area of their efforts. A Children's Education workshop opened in Moscow began by making dolls to demonstrate the festive costumes of inhabitants of various gubernias and uyezds in Russia, and were an accurate portrayal of ethnic features of peasant women's dress.

It was at this workshop that the idea of a Russian wooden doll was conceived. Sketches were made by S. V. Malyutin, a professional artist and member of the Mamontov circle, an active pioneer of the "Russian style" in art. He borrowed the idea of a “take-apart” doll from a Japanese toy which Mamontov’s wife had brought from the Island of Honshu. That figure showed a sage by the name of Fukuruma, a good-natured bald-headed old man, a doll which contained several other figures nestled in one another. The Japanese, incidentally, claim that the first such doll on the Island of Honshu was made by a Russian monk.
malyutin's nesting doll was a round-faced peasant girl in an embroidered shirt, a sarafan, and an apron, in a colored kerchief holding a black rooster. The toy was manufactured in Sergiev Posad and contained eight dolls: a girl with a rooster contained a boy which contained a girl again. No two figures were alike with the smallest, eighth figure, portraying a baby tightly wrapped in a diaper.

The most common kinds of tree used for matryoshkas are lime and birch.
The first to be made are usually the smallest figures which cannot be taken apart. All the operations do not involve any measurements, and rely on intuition and require great skill.
After the Children’s Education workshop was closed, the showcase and training in manufacturing of matryoshkas moved to Sergiev Posad, an old toy-making center. It soon launched commercial production of the toy and developed the type of matryoshka that became known as Sergiev Posad or Zagorsk matryoshka.
The art of making and painting matryoshkas flourished in Sergiev Posad in the early decades of the 20th century so powerfully that it set the trend for matryoshka painting in Russia for many years ahead.

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