The Partisans [Palekh]

Product Description

Partisans (Партизаны). O. Belishev (О. Белышев). Hinged papier-mache box, egg tempera paints, metallic powders, lacquer. 5" x 3" x 1¼". Some light but barely noticeable signs of use. 1 only, as shown.

The partisans were members of the anti-German resistance movement who fought a guerrilla war against the Axis forces in the Soviet Union. Their activity emerged after the Nazi German Operation Barbarossa, and according to The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, it was coordinated and controlled by the Soviet government and shaped by the Red Army. The partisans were effective to the war effort by frustrating German plans to exploit occupied Soviet territories economically, while conducting systematic strikes against the Germans.

Copy of a lacquer painting by Fyodor Aleksandrovich Kaurtsev (Фёдор Александрович Каурцев) that was originally painted in the 1940s. The four partisans come up over a ridge as behind them a German plane and tanks go up in flames. An interesting box not in the usual fairy tale genre. Refer to Palekh: The State Museum of Palekh Art by Vitaly Kotov and Larisa Taktashova, plate 81 for the original.