BALTIC IMPORTS NEWSLETTER
www.balticimports.com August Amber Sale 2010
Members of The International Amber Association and
The International Conference on Amber and Archeology
Twenty Years Serving the Amber Community
“Theomenes says that near the Greater Syrtis are the Gardens of the Hesperides, and Lake Electrum: on the banks, he says, are poplars, from the summits of which amber falls into the water below, where it is gathered by the maidens of the Hesperides.”
The Ancient Amber Routes and the Geographical Discovery of the Eastern Baltic Arnolds Spekke
“Pārvedu brālim/Dzintara sievu. Viss māršas pūriņš/Dzintariem vizēja Tēvam iedeva/ Dzintara kreklu; Mātei uzsedza/Dzintara sagšu; Brālim uzkāra/ Dzintara dvieli; Māsai uzlika/ Dzintara vaiņagu.
Daina 13282v.6
“I brought my brother an amber wife. Sister-in-law’s entire dowry sparkled with amber. Father received an amber shirt. Mother was covered with an amber shawl. An amber towel was hung for brother. An amber crown was placed on sister’s head.” Latvian Oral Tradition Daina 13282version6
August is a perfect time for our Annual Amber Sale. As the month brings its rich light to our changing world, we at the store will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the founding of our business. In the old agricultural world of Northern and Eastern Europe long August was the ending of “haytime”, the season of sun and hard work, where open “courting” would occur and the young men and women would prepare for the blessings of the Earth and the weddings of fall.
Here, at the store, we have set out the new amber that we have gathered in our summer travels. If there is a predominance of perfect clear golden amber, then blame it on the beauty of summer’s light and the blessings that were given, again and again, by the sweet summer Sun.
NEWS
20th Annual Amber Sale Our Annual August Amber Sale will start with the Pre-Sale, on Tuesday, August 10th and continue through Friday, August 13th. As always, it is a time set aside for our newsletter clients and amber collectors to purchase from all of our stock before the public sale begins. The Sale to the Public will begin on the 14th of August and run through Labor Day, September 6th.
Please do not ask to have amber set aside prior to or during the sale. During the amber sale the store has pledged to have all its amber open for purchase. All amber sales will be considered final sales.
Amber Pre-Sale Coupon An amber pre-sale coupon is included at the end of this newsletter for a 25% savings off any of our amber products during the Pre-Sale. The coupon may be used for a purchase of multiple items of amber. The Pre-Sale is our way of saying thank you for your support throughout the year.
Neighborhood News
A number of special events from Dog Parades to Special Lectures are constantly happening in our Northeast neighborhood. For current neighborhood news, Internet links, and unannounced sales, go to our Baltic Imports Facebook Page. Two up and coming special events that Baltic Imports will participate in are The Polish Festival on August 14th and 15th that will run along the Mississippi riverfront on Main Street, just down from our store, and the Kielbasa Fest at Kramarczuk’s on September 10thand 11th. The Polish Festival is a great family event and the 1st Ever KielbasaFest will feature European beers and, of course, plenty of Kielbasa.
On August 30th, the series“Diners, Dives, and Drive-Ins” from the Food Network will be airing a show about Kramarczuk’s. It was quite fun watching the Star of the show slam the door of his car and say through 20 takes, “We’re here in Northeast Minneapolis, or as the locals call it, NordEast.”
NEW PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS
A number of special products have been brought back to the store from our travels. Among the most spiritual are the Exceptional Hand Painted Miniature Icon Paintings by one of Russia’s greatest artists, Andrey Kotukhin, a registered artist from the famous village of Palekh. Small handmade papier-mâché lacquer forms, traditionally made with horsehair and powders, have been shaped into Orthodox crosses and medallions and painted on. The traditional Byzantine iconography and gold leaf on such a small form is instantly compelling. Through the years we have brought many of the now famous contemporary iconographers to our store. Kotukhin’s work rivals the best we have ever brought. Please come in just to see the small masterworks. Their beauty and spiritual authority creates a sense of reverential awe in the observer as if we are looking through a window onto a faith and a time that is pure and unsullied. In 1990, Baltic Imports supported the reformation of the Novgorod School for Traditional Iconography in the soon to change Russia. In 1992, we supported the creation of a three- part miniature triptych made by A. Kotukhin for the ancient Church in Palekh. We have been in love with the work of this 5th generation Palekh painter, and his family’s, since the beginning of our store.
Along with the hand painted icons, we found a small selection of vintage, the older forms, of Rostov Enamel(also called Finift) Icon Medallions for the store, that are patterned on Russian Orthodox religious imagery popular in the 17th century. Rostov enamel jewelry, finift, is created by layering enamel powders on metal, usually German silver, and heating it to temperatures reaching a thousand degrees. The small paintings on the forms are famous. The vintage icon medallions are important for they show the old mastery of the form and contain much more difficult detail and Orthodox imagery than the contemporary. I love the little Guardian Angel in the vintage case. The filigree silver has darkened on its edges but the simple sweetness and tenderness of the hand that wrote the image can be felt today.
The ancient lyrical patterns of the Sun and the Moon grace the cut and layered Large Karelian Birch Bark Barrettes that Ingrida fell in love with. It feels like a hundred years since we left the beauty of the forests and walked along the dirt and gravel roads to the market and that little store in Latgale, to buy root crops from the men in horse carts and simply talk to the women who had their hair carefully braided or pinned back with blessings, while the yellow birch leaves of fall shook on their tall trees, shaking with beauty before they would fall. The birch is the gentlest tree in Northern and Eastern Europe. Not strong like the Oak, not as feminine as the Linden, not as unreliable as the Alder, not as great a guardian as the Mountain Ash. It lives with us during our lifetime. And, like our lives, it often falls when we fall. It is the tree that we cut a cross upon when someone in the village passes. It is the tree that one binds back their hair with, in their youth through their old age, so that they too may live and pass in beauty. Perhaps that is why Ingrida loved them, old-fashioned as they are.
The last of the many new products that we have gathered and would like to introduce is a very rare Steel Grey/Black Stone called Shungite. At 2.5 billion years of age, this carbon ferrous rock is one of the very oldest stones in our world and is being mined in Karelia as a sustainable community resource. We’ve obtained it from the Siberian Mining Guild who is helping them organize. The surprisingly light stone for its size has moved through Europe as the new grounding stone, 10 times more effective than Hematite. In addition, the ancient stone is being labeled as producing medicinal waters. Many documented studies by Russian scientists conclude that Shungite dissipates the harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation. For the Karelians it has always been their very own amber, that is, a healing stone and a great guardian.
AMBER HIGHLIGHTS
For our 20th Amber Sale, Ingrida and I searched for the very best amber we could find. Any shopping outside of the studios that we have known and supported these past twenty years, even as knowledgeable as we are, was very difficult. 85% of the amber available in shops, markets, and amber factories was manipulated or made from amber that was fused into a block and computer cut. Green amber with no gem value was everywhere, along with dyed red, lemon, and rose. Often we found ourselves seduced by the beauty of a setting only to find that it hid skillfully manipulated amber. Every little piece that we bought was checked by both by Ingrida and me as we laughed and shared and talked our way through the hot days and still nights, looking for beauty.
One of our missions was to find reasonable pendants, earrings, and rings for the last festivals of summer and the changing colors of fall. Among my favorite pendants are the Ice Amber Sun Axes, made from water-clear amber that has filled with gasses. The silver bails on the ancient forms are simple and deeply thoughtful, making the old Indo-European migration axes look like modern, perfect, curves of rare amber.
The small, gentle, Polish Golden Leaf Pendants are made from naturally shaped small sea pieces of golden amber with the rind only slightly buffed. The little handmade silver flower and leaf bails hold the amber within them and offer an ancient symbol of renewal reminding one of the promises of the Tree of Life.
The Silver Bound Heart with Tear: a Symbol of the Soul amber pendants are made with the most beautiful amber, from white and pearl to opaque yellow and traditional cognac. Here again, with modern design we have taken a medieval concept and made it visually striking and contemporary. The shining beauty of each little pendant tells the story of when the symbol of the heart was not simply “love” but the image for the seat of the soul, where the qualities that could sustain love sat, perseverance, courage, and the tear of compassion.
Since all of our pendants, earrings, and rings are one of a kind and made with natural amber, they all differ. In addition, the studio production that produces them never produces a lot. Of our fine pieces we may have only 1 or 2 in a series. A large series for us is perhaps 6 different pieces made by one master.
We’ve brought a large number of new amber rings in many designs and colors. Our Deep Cherry Oval Amber Rings are quite dramatic and going quickly. Among our favorite rings are the Ancient Amber Sailor’s Rings of the Sun and Ship’s Wheel which offer protection on land or sea for the traveler. This 1st century ring has a sun of amber set on a silver spoked wheel. On the clear golden amber rings you can see the wheel shining beneath the amber. The Silver Master Bands of Inlaid Amber are appropriate for both men and women and preserve the folded silver work and cut circles of the old great studios.
Of the many earrings that we returned with, some of the most distinctive are the Old Fashioned Slab Cut Earrings, made by the older Latvian masters to stress the natural form of the individual ambers. They are visually rich in both amber rind and in the colors of their inclusions. The Double Sun and Moon Earrings in White and Pearl Amber are marked by the thick sterling silver work that binds each of the 2 rounds of amber. The Hand Pounded and Rolled Sterling Amber Earrings that hold the amber in a cornucopia form are outstanding in their workmanship and are perhaps the most elegant earrings we have in the store.
My favorite necklaces are the Two Stacked Multicolor Sun Disk Necklaces hand tied between each bead. The colors of the older and newer ambers & the opaque and transparent ambers create a stunningly beautiful and immensely feminine heirloom masterwork that is elegant, classical, and timeless. But looking around the store there is so much that is beautiful: the little ice amber necklace with a perfect cherry amber sun tear, the knobby golden sea amber necklace that comes brilliantly to life when it is placed around the neck, the long, 22 to 24 inch, strings of hand rounded beads, the little necklace of čūska, the grass snake, whose layered diamond form goes back to ancient Balt mythology and represents Knowledge, and the multicolored amber guardian moon necklaces. Come in and meet with our knowledgeable staff and find a perfect piece, full of meaning that holds your heart.
The Miniatures of Palekh
A folk art essay by Sean McLaughlin. Copyright 2010
The little essay that follows is a story of two revolutions and a village of peasants that grew to become some of the most recognized artists in the world. It starts in the seventeenth century, and climbs aboard the last Soviet Russian trains that would run from Ukraine to the Baltic Station in St. Petersburg, pausing in Riga late at night, to take on passengers. It goes on from there, both forwards and backwards, to the solemnity of a vow, and a man contemplating the history of his family. Like all good stories that pretend to be scholarly, or at least thoughtful, it starts with a quote.
“Could one have supposed that icon painting, the most conservative craft, might have enabled Palekh craftsmen to arrive at their present perfect mastery which evokes admiration… Palekh, its history is a striking example of how wisely the revolution can link the past with the present. Palekh will always represent poetic images of the people.”
Maxim Gorky
Palekh, before the Bolshevik Revolution, was a large trading village in Central Russia. During that revolution it was changed into one of the administrative centers for the Ivanovo Region, situated as it was on the slopes of two hills which are separated by the beautiful little river, the Paleshka. In the Russia of the Soviets the term Palekh was often used to describe a specific school of Russian art, most notably the elaborately decorated miniature paintings that graced the famous black lacquered boxes and fine brooches which were made by the “Old Style Guild” of the village Palekh.
It was these brooches and black lacquer boxes that Ingrida and I went to St. Petersburg to purchase on the last Soviet trains that would run freely, that is without border stops and customs, from deep in the Ukraine to the beautiful Baltic Station in St. Petersburg. Traveling without visa papers, our wonderful Latvian friend who had lived for years in St. Petersburg studying geology and underwater mineral excavation, pushed me into the corridor of the overly crowded train and told me in whispered Latvian to “absolutely not talk to anyone,” as he directed Ingrida to the hard sleeping palette and conversed in Russian with the other 4 people in the crowded little compartment.
St. Petersburg at that time was in shambles, still heartbreakingly beautiful, but like a city preparing for siege. The goodwill construction projects started by the Finns and Swedes were abandoned with fragments of framing wood still left in doorways. There was open water running down the walls of the Hermitage, behind the priceless dark Rembrandts. Even then, when we finally found the Palekh master boxes, we could not afford them and bought instead the small numbered editions of the last scholarly books on archeology and iconography, some only printed in the hundreds.
Palekh was to us, as it was to most of the people in the West at that time, so closely associated with the miniature painting that stressed the subject matter and themes suggested by Russian history, folk songs, legends and fairy-tales, that one was not aware that its rise, and very aesthetic, was based on holy iconography.
It was in the early 17th century that the Palekh peasants, serfs of Buturlin’s estate, took up various crafts and, in particular, that of icon painting. Working in a loose guild where different people took the responsibility of preparing the panel, priming it, blocking it, etc, with certain individual serf artists being responsible for drapery, landscape, and holy faces, the village soon gained a reputation as an Icon producing village. By the late 17th century and early 18th century, icon painting in Palekh attained the level of a professional art, with Palekh artists traveling throughout Russia on assignments for churches, monasteries, and nunneries. Indeed, The Church of the Raising Cross in Palekh was so full of icons that spanned Russian history that “the great proletarian writer”as noted by the State Museum of Palekh Art, Maxim Gorky, made a plea to the Soviet authorities in 1927, which, while still championing “ the new Soviet style of the creative awakening of the working masses” asked that “one of the Moscow museums collect pre-revolutionary Palekh works, icons executed in the Byzantine and European manners, and exhibit them side by side with the achievements of today.” Gorky’s plea was heeded, and The Museum of Palekh Art was opened in 1935 on the 10th Anniversary of the Old Style Guild.
The Icon painters of Palekh drafted into World War 1 came home to a changed Russia where iconography was neither sought nor permitted. Most had little option but to try to farm. Then in 1922, Ivan Golikov, a Palekh artist who had refused to stop painting, chanced to notice a painted papier-mâché box at the Moscow Museum of Handicrafts and painted a plate in a similar “modern” manner. But he would use the Palekh icon aesthetics of inverted perspective, highly ornamental treatment of form, two dimensional figures, conventional backgrounds of hills, grasses, and chambers, as well as gold and silver paint to do it.
By 1924, the demand for Palekh papier-mache was so extensive that Golikov, Marichev, and A. Kotukhin and I. Kotukhin to establish the new guild of artists which, because of their icon training, they called the Old Style Guild. Alexander Kotukhin, was elected its first chairman.
It was the revolution of 1990-91, with the fall of the Soviet Union, that allowed another A. Kotukhin – Andrey- a famous box painter, member of the Palekh Guild, and Registered Artist of the Russian Republic, to return to iconography. All that had been learned in the 75 years of painting miniatures, and all that had been forgotten… the patron icons of the Stroganov School of Tsar’s Iconographers and the Armory Chamber School, was there to be used. Like his father and grandfather he was ready to move into the future in a way that acknowledged his own past and the past of the village he cherishes.
We can remember the excitement that his first miniature icon triptych, which was placed near the altar in the church in Palekh to be sanctified, generated. For us, it is an honor to represent his work. For our customers, the Kotukhin name ensures a history of mastery and value rarely seen outside of Russia.
Sources
Ancient Palekh Icon Painting, Mural Painting Vitaly Kotov and Larisa Taktashova Moscow 1981
Palekh The State Museum of Russian Art Moscow 1990
CUSTOMER APPRECIATION COUPON
25% Off Any Amber Purchase
Store Hours
Monday 10:00-4:00
Tuesday-Friday 10:00-6:00
Saturday 10:00-6:00
Sunday 11:00-3:00
Coupon valid August 10th – September 6th, 2010
For our 20th Amber Sale, Ingrida and I searched for the very best amber we could find. Any shopping outside of the studios that we have known and supported these past twenty years, even as knowledgeable as we are, was very difficult. 85% of the amber available in shops, markets, and amber factories was manipulated or made from amber that was fused into a block and computer cut. Green amber with no gem value was everywhere, along with dyed red, lemon, and rose. Often we found ourselves seduced by the beauty of a setting only to find that it hid skillfully manipulated amber. Every little piece that we bought was checked by both by Ingrida and me as we laughed and shared and talked our way through the hot days and still nights, looking for beauty.
One of our missions was to find reasonable pendants, earrings, and rings for the last festivals of summer and the changing colors of fall. Among my favorite pendants are the Ice Amber Sun Axes, made from water-clear amber that has filled with gasses. The silver bails on the ancient forms are simple and deeply thoughtful, making the old Indo-European migration axes look like modern, perfect, curves of rare amber.
The small, gentle, Polish Golden Leaf Pendants are made from naturally shaped small sea pieces of golden amber with the rind only slightly buffed. The little handmade silver flower and leaf bails hold the amber within them and offer an ancient symbol of renewal reminding one of the promises of the Tree of Life.
The Silver Bound Heart with Tear: a Symbol of the Soul amber pendants are made with the most beautiful amber, from white and pearl to opaque yellow and traditional cognac. Here again, with modern design we have taken a medieval concept and made it visually striking and contemporary. The shining beauty of each little pendant tells the story of when the symbol of the heart was not simply “love” but the image for the seat of the soul, where the qualities that could sustain love sat, perseverance, courage, and the tear of compassion.
Since all of our pendants, earrings, and rings are one of a kind and made with natural amber, they all differ. In addition, the studio production that produces them never produces a lot. Of our fine pieces we may have only 1 or 2 in a series. A large series for us is perhaps 6 different pieces made by one master.
We’ve brought a large number of new amber rings in many designs and colors. Our Deep Cherry Oval Amber Rings are quite dramatic and going quickly. Among our favorite rings are the Ancient Amber Sailor’s Rings of the Sun and Ship’s Wheel which offer protection on land or sea for the traveler. This 1st century ring has a sun of amber set on a silver spoked wheel. On the clear golden amber rings you can see the wheel shining beneath the amber. The Silver Master Bands of Inlaid Amber are appropriate for both men and women and preserve the folded silver work and cut circles of the old great studios.
Of the many earrings that we returned with, some of the most distinctive are the Old Fashioned Slab Cut Earrings, made by the older Latvian masters to stress the natural form of the individual ambers. They are visually rich in both amber rind and in the colors of their inclusions. The Double Sun and Moon Earrings in White and Pearl Amber are marked by the thick sterling silver work that binds each of the 2 rounds of amber. The Hand Pounded and Rolled Sterling Amber Earrings that hold the amber in a cornucopia form are outstanding in their workmanship and are perhaps the most elegant earrings we have in the store.
My favorite necklaces are the Two Stacked Multicolor Sun Disk Necklaces hand tied between each bead. The colors of the older and newer ambers & the opaque and transparent ambers create a stunningly beautiful and immensely feminine heirloom masterwork that is elegant, classical, and timeless. But looking around the store there is so much that is beautiful: the little ice amber necklace with a perfect cherry amber sun tear, the knobby golden sea amber necklace that comes brilliantly to life when it is placed around the neck, the long, 22 to 24 inch, strings of hand rounded beads, the little necklace of čūska, the grass snake, whose layered diamond form goes back to ancient Balt mythology and represents Knowledge, and the multicolored amber guardian moon necklaces. Come in and meet with our knowledgeable staff and find a perfect piece, full of meaning that holds your heart.
The Miniatures of Palekh
A folk art essay by Sean McLaughlin. Copyright 2010
The little essay that follows is a story of two revolutions and a village of peasants that grew to become some of the most recognized artists in the world. It starts in the seventeenth century, and climbs aboard the last Soviet Russian trains that would run from Ukraine to the Baltic Station in St. Petersburg, pausing in Riga late at night, to take on passengers. It goes on from there, both forwards and backwards, to the solemnity of a vow, and a man contemplating the history of his family. Like all good stories that pretend to be scholarly, or at least thoughtful, it starts with a quote.
“Could one have supposed that icon painting, the most conservative craft, might have enabled Palekh craftsmen to arrive at their present perfect mastery which evokes admiration… Palekh, its history is a striking example of how wisely the revolution can link the past with the present. Palekh will always represent poetic images of the people.”
Maxim Gorky
Palekh, before the Bolshevik Revolution, was a large trading village in Central Russia. During that revolution it was changed into one of the administrative centers for the Ivanovo Region, situated as it was on the slopes of two hills which are separated by the beautiful little river, the Paleshka. In the Russia of the Soviets the term Palekh was often used to describe a specific school of Russian art, most notably the elaborately decorated miniature paintings that graced the famous black lacquered boxes and fine brooches which were made by the “Old Style Guild” of the village Palekh.
It was these brooches and black lacquer boxes that Ingrida and I went to St. Petersburg to purchase on the last Soviet trains that would run freely, that is without border stops and customs, from deep in the Ukraine to the beautiful Baltic Station in St. Petersburg. Traveling without visa papers, our wonderful Latvian friend who had lived for years in St. Petersburg studying geology and underwater mineral excavation, pushed me into the corridor of the overly crowded train and told me in whispered Latvian to “absolutely not talk to anyone,” as he directed Ingrida to the hard sleeping palette and conversed in Russian with the other 4 people in the crowded little compartment.
St. Petersburg at that time was in shambles, still heartbreakingly beautiful, but like a city preparing for siege. The goodwill construction projects started by the Finns and Swedes were abandoned with fragments of framing wood still left in doorways. There was open water running down the walls of the Hermitage, behind the priceless dark Rembrandts. Even then, when we finally found the Palekh master boxes, we could not afford them and bought instead the small numbered editions of the last scholarly books on archeology and iconography, some only printed in the hundreds.
Palekh was to us, as it was to most of the people in the West at that time, so closely associated with the miniature painting that stressed the subject matter and themes suggested by Russian history, folk songs, legends and fairy-tales, that one was not aware that its rise, and very aesthetic, was based on holy iconography.
It was in the early 17th century that the Palekh peasants, serfs of Buturlin’s estate, took up various crafts and, in particular, that of icon painting. Working in a loose guild where different people took the responsibility of preparing the panel, priming it, blocking it, etc, with certain individual serf artists being responsible for drapery, landscape, and holy faces, the village soon gained a reputation as an Icon producing village. By the late 17th century and early 18th century, icon painting in Palekh attained the level of a professional art, with Palekh artists traveling throughout Russia on assignments for churches, monasteries, and nunneries. Indeed, The Church of the Raising Cross in Palekh was so full of icons that spanned Russian history that “the great proletarian writer”as noted by the State Museum of Palekh Art, Maxim Gorky, made a plea to the Soviet authorities in 1927, which, while still championing “ the new Soviet style of the creative awakening of the working masses” asked that “one of the Moscow museums collect pre-revolutionary Palekh works, icons executed in the Byzantine and European manners, and exhibit them side by side with the achievements of today.” Gorky’s plea was heeded, and The Museum of Palekh Art was opened in 1935 on the 10th Anniversary of the Old Style Guild.
The Icon painters of Palekh drafted into World War 1 came home to a changed Russia where iconography was neither sought nor permitted. Most had little option but to try to farm. Then in 1922, Ivan Golikov, a Palekh artist who had refused to stop painting, chanced to notice a painted papier-mâché box at the Moscow Museum of Handicrafts and painted a plate in a similar “modern” manner. But he would use the Palekh icon aesthetics of inverted perspective, highly ornamental treatment of form, two dimensional figures, conventional backgrounds of hills, grasses, and chambers, as well as gold and silver paint to do it.
By 1924, the demand for Palekh papier-mache was so extensive that Golikov, Marichev, and A. Kotukhin and I. Kotukhin to establish the new guild of artists which, because of their icon training, they called the Old Style Guild. Alexander Kotukhin, was elected its first chairman.
It was the revolution of 1990-91, with the fall of the Soviet Union, that allowed another A. Kotukhin – Andrey- a famous box painter, member of the Palekh Guild, and Registered Artist of the Russian Republic, to return to iconography. All that had been learned in the 75 years of painting miniatures, and all that had been forgotten… the patron icons of the Stroganov School of Tsar’s Iconographers and the Armory Chamber School, was there to be used. Like his father and grandfather he was ready to move into the future in a way that acknowledged his own past and the past of the village he cherishes.
We can remember the excitement that his first miniature icon triptych, which was placed near the altar in the church in Palekh to be sanctified, generated. For us, it is an honor to represent his work. For our customers, the Kotukhin name ensures a history of mastery and value rarely seen outside of Russia.
Sources
Ancient Palekh Icon Painting, Mural Painting Vitaly Kotov and Larisa Taktashova Moscow 1981
Palekh The State Museum of Russian Art Moscow 1990
CUSTOMER APPRECIATION COUPON
25% Off Any Amber Purchase
Store Hours
Monday 10:00-4:00
Tuesday-Friday 10:00-6:00
Saturday 10:00-6:00
Sunday 11:00-3:00
Coupon valid August 10th – September 6th, 2010
