Product Description
Maiden in a Glade (Дева на поляне). A pensive and serene young girl is seated in the middle of a pastoral landscape. She wears a peach color sarafan with a blouse shaded in white and blue. The hills behind her are shaded in olive and emerald. Vintage Rostov "finift" painted enamel brooch. Yaroslavl region. 1980's. With a pinback. 1¾" diameter. 1 only. Gift boxed.
Painting on enamel appeared in Rostov Veliky (125 miles northwest of Moscow) in the 18th century. The Veliky (i.e., The Great) appended to the town is to distinguish it from Rostov-on-the-Don, which is about 500 miles south of Moscow, and to indicate that it's the older of the two towns. First mentioned in 862 in the Primary Chronicle, and two centuries later joined by Rurik to his Kingdom, when it became the seat of the Church.
Since 1917, local artisans began painting miniatures on enamel with colorful floral patterns and enhanced with filigree settings and frames. Finift painting has many layers and each layer is fired. Finift comes from the Greek “fingitis,” a term which means “gleaming” (and not some ghastly illness which it sounds like).
