BY PETER BOYARSHINOV, ZLATOUST, EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Peter Klementievich Boyarshinov was as an icon painter in the drawing department at the Zlatoust factory during the first half of the nineteenth century. He descended from a dynasty of metalworkers and icon painters, who transferred in 1762 to the Zlatoust factory from a village in Perm Province, where they worked as serfs for Count Stroganoff. Founded in 1754, Zlatoust was by the nineteenth century one of the leading centres for artistic engraving on metal and became famous for its arms and metallurgical factories.
Combining painted metalwork and the rich mineral specimen of the Urals, the present lot is a rare example of the imaginative icons Peter Boyarshinov created for the Zlatoust factory. In both its choice of subject matter and manner of execution, Boyarshinov's composition exemplifies the artistic industries for which the city was known.
Two similar icons to the present lot, which combine mineral specimens and oil on copper figures were commissioned from the Zlatoust factory in 1826 and can now be seen at the House Church of the St Petersburg Mining Institute. These examples include: Transfiguration, which is also signed and dated by Peter Boyarshinov and Resurrection, which is signed and dated by Nikolay Bushuev. A further unsigned example of this genre of icon depicting the Transfiguration, also made at the Zlatoust factory, became part of the St Petersburg Mining Institute's collection in 1839, after it was shown at the St Petersburg Manufacturing Exhibition.
The rarity of the present lot is enhanced by the fact that there are only approximately 38 similar works in Russia and very few analogous works can be found in Europe.