The first matryoshka
Eight turned wooden dolls nesting inside one another, painted as a girl in a sarafan holding a rooster.
The matryoshka was made at the Children’s Education workshop in Moscow, inspired by Japanese fukuruma dolls. It was shown at the 1900 Paris Exposition and became a Russian symbol. It is in the Toy Museum in Sergiev Posad.
Materials: Lime wood, tempera, lacquer
Manufacture: The dolls were turned by Vasily Zvyozdochkin so that each part fits exactly into the next; Malyutin painted them.
The eight dolls of different sizes, all opening in the middle.
The largest doll’s rooster and the smallest, a swaddled baby.