About the works from the collection of architect V. A. Tauber in the department of folk art of the State Russian Museum

Abstract

The existence of his personal collection is confirmed already in 1925, when he donated to the museum six boxes with disassembled parts of various copper church utensils. After the architect’s death, when being accepted for temporary storage in the Russian museum in 1944, the items were distributed among several departments. Today, some of them are in the folk art department. A variety of metal products from the collection of V. A. Tauber (candles, wedding crowns, keys, locks, candleholder, caskets called “teremki”, brackets, bratina, mace) have not previously been the subject of special research. Most of them did not have the time and place of production determined. Therefore, the author of this article focused on the issues of attribution of these products. The artistic analysis was also carried out. Numerous analogies from Russian and foreign museums were used. The items were considered as a whole collection. As a result, it is concluded that most of the items from the collection of V. A. Tauber are beautiful works of folk art, which demonstrates an infinite variety of artistic solutions. This is emphasized not only by their presence on the permanent exhibition of the department of folk art, but also by their publication in various museum books. Most of the artistic works are in the field of ecclesiastical art, so it is possible that they are related to the Museum of a dying cult.