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Russian Pearl |
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The Treasure Room collection reflects all the wealth and diversity of the ornaments used by the peoples of Russian Empire. Buttons, earrings and head-dresses trimmed with pearls are the majority of the decorations of the Russian fund. Pearls, found in the Varzuga, Kem', Pinega and other rivers in Northern Russia, were favorite material for the decorations. All female and maiden head-dresses kept in Treasure Room are embroidered with river pearls and golden threads, some of them are decorated with semi-precious stones and fringes of pearls strung on a horsehair or a linen thread. Many varieties of head-dresses are characteristic either in the different provinces and districts of North European Russia. There are all types of Russian earrings XVI th. - early XXth. century in the collection. In XVth. - XVII th. centuries earrings in the form of a question mark were most widespread. Depending on the number of bars they were called "singlets", "doulets" and "triplets". Massive silver earrings of this type related to the Novgorod culture of the XVI th. -XVII th. centuries. The convex relief depictions on both side of such earrings usually feature a filigreed ornament, coloured enamels and insets of coloured glass or stone. The basket-shapes earrings are embellished with river pearls and strass appeared in the late XVIII th.- XIXth. centuries under the influence of the baroque style. They took the form of butterflies or bowls, with pendants in the shape of pearl, stylized flower baskets and bunches of grapes. Small river pearls were wide used for such earrings. In the folk ornaments coloured glass, glass-beads, strasses were substitute for precious stones, but at all time pearl was preference shown to.
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| Kokoshnik - Female Festive Headgear. Russians. Pskov Province. Town of Toropets, Late 19th century |
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| Kokoshnik - Female Festive Headgear. Russians. Kaluga Province. Late 19th century |
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| Ear-Rings. Russians. First half of the 19th century |
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| Russian Pearl |
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| Buttons. Russians. North-West of the European part of Russia. 17th -18th centuries |
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In this heading:
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