Showcases 3-4. Moscow jewellry of the XVth century

The late XIVth - the XVth century is the time of the political and economical upturn of Russia. The Moscow Prince unyoked the country at the close of the XVth century and trenchant policy of his successors made Moscow to advance in development. It gradually began figuring prominently in the art maturity, development of useful arts and jeweller's art in particular. The prosperity of that handicraft in Moscow is related both to the joined considerable princedoms, the local centres of jeweller's art, and to the arrival of metropolitan Fotios the Greek in Russia at the beginning of the XVth century (1410). The best Russian and foreign makers worked in the Moscow metropolitan jewellery workshop. Even in the XVth century the works of the Moscow makers were appreciated greatly by theirs contemporaries. The Moscow jewelers possess various techniques of art processing of jewelry: embossing, niello, carving, casting, basma (baysa, paytsza), filigree, granulation. In their work artistic methods of the Byzantine jeweller's art and traditions of the local centres were combined. A special attention was concentrated on decoration of the Russian main temple - the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.