European iconography of Ural’s relief icons

Abstract

Relief icons (later also landscapes) are the peculiarity of the stone cutting production, very popular in the Ural stone cutting artists of the 19th century. The technology of this kind of production was described and analysed previously, especially in some publications of the author. However, the question about the sources of this type of production and about the used iconography still actual. The present article is dedicated to the new discovered sources of inspiration in the European art, what open the studies of the parallels between Ural’s works and the similar kind of objects by the west-European artists. Also, the article proposes the identification of some sources of the iconographic details and composition, what permit the attribution of Ural’s works, precise and argument the dating. In the fact, to the previously discovered and published by the author information about the use by the creators of the relief icons of the German engraving of the second half of the 19th century, article adds newly discovered information about the use of the different west-European sources of the 17th–18th centuries. This information permits us to enlarge the dating for some pieces, and to precise the circle of the sources, knot weed and used by the local artists. New data permit us to include the regional Ural art to the common for the European decorative art of the 19th century process of the rethinking of the heritage of the pastime, argument the actual thesis about the analyses of the Ural artistic industry as a part of the European culture of the 19th century.