Precious Metals Collection
 

 

 

 

          The Precious Metals Collection started forming in the 1920s – 1930s and includes 1773 subjects. The first exhibits of jeweler’s art arrived to museum from the State Museum Fund in 1925, their basic part - in 1927-1928. Among them were works of art from the known Russian collections: Yusupovs, Shuvalovs, Kochubeys, Romanovs. The initial collection became a basis for the future acquisition of the given unit of museum collection in the 1950s - 1990s. Most intensively the museum collection of articles made of precious metals and stones (first of all - silver) replenished in the 1980s. The basic period of acquisition of exhibits of the Russian silver fell on 1976 - 1989. The significant collection of ancient precious metals items arrived in the second half of the 1980s and in the beginning of the 1990s.

         Sources of formation of the Museum Precious Metals Collection in the 1950s – 1990s became transfers of objects from the State museums of the Moscow Kremlin, arrivals of results of archeological excavations of steppe complexes Bogdanovka, Sidorovka, Isakovka I, purchases from inhabitants of Omsk, findings in the old Omsk house.

         Due to inclusion of jewelry of Sarmatian epoch in structure of the collection, its chronological frameworks have considerably extended: middle of the first millennium BC – 20th century.

         Jewelry of an epoch of the early Iron Age (5th century BC – 4th century AD), Sarmatian epoch makes the most numerous part of the collection.

         Gold and silver articles of personal decoration, weapons and horse harnesses belong to the “animal style” which characterizes art of the nomadic peoples of Eurasia of an epoch of the early Iron Age. A collection of the ancient jeweler’s works by its art value is comparable to the well-known “Siberian collection” of Peter I, stored in the State Hermitage.

         Rather diverse are represented works by masters of the 18th - beginning of the 20th centuries, some relics belong to the 16th – 17th centuries.

         Exhibits of the European silver from the museum collection are created by masters from France, Germany, Switzerland, and also Austria, Holland, etc. Among them are decorative objects such as various bowls, small vases, tiny models of furniture, etc., and things having applied purpose (tableware and utensils, snuffboxes, watches and so forth). Works of the known West-European jewelers, monogram masters, including J. Schenauer stand out.

         Small, but diverse by its structure collection of silver wares characterizes domestic jeweler art, including decorative items, table silverware and so forth. We can distinguish articles made by I.P. Ovchinnikov, I.P. Khlebnikov’s firms, G. Lizerin's factories. The Art of Russian masters - jewelers is represented also by the samples of works executed in the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries and designed for mass consumer. Among them are items of the known firm Faberge.

         As a result of purchases from the Omsk inhabitants was formed the collection of cult items of the 18th - beginning of the 20th centuries. In its structure are icon incasements, icon lampions and so forth, made in the known centers of Russia: Moscow, Petersburg, Orel, Kaluga, Kostroma.