The museum houses combs, chests, chess sets, staffs and other artifacts made of bone.
Elegant bone chests were common in Russian everyday life.
In general, the chests were made in the traditional faceted shape of a casket with a lid. Carved bone plates were glued to the wooden body of the finished box. Colored foil served as the background for fretwork. Some bone plates were painted green, using stems of marsh horsetail, rhubarb, or wild mountain ash. Green plates alternated with white ones. Later, artisans began using aniline-based dyes.
The plates were decorated with an engraved pattern of eye-like dots (a circle with a spot in the middle) or a floral motif made of twigs and flowers with buds. The painted parts created a beautiful contrast with the color of the unpainted bone. Here is an excerpt from the book “Bone Carving in Russia of the 18th–19th Centuries” by Irina Nikolaevna Ukhanova,
