E.I. Loseva, “Portrait of Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram”; 1920s
Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram was born in 1873 in the village of Semenovka, Lgovsky district, Kursk province, into the family of an artist. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but did not complete his education. Organizer and director of a toy workshop in the village of Semenovka. Toy collector. Master toy maker. Employee of the Handicraft Museum. Founder and director of the Toy Museum in Moscow. Full member of the Academy of Artistic Sciences. He died in 1931 in Moscow. Buried at Novodevichy Cemetery
Dream of a museum
What is a major charity? A philanthropist donates money and ends up in history. It’s fair, I must say, because donating money is a noble cause.
But still there are other destinies. When there is no trace of capital, and a person, in fact, from scratch, creates something unprecedented solely thanks to his enthusiasm and true sacrifice. Giving up simple joys. Without claiming honorary certificates or orders.
Far away from the capital city of St. Petersburg and the capital of Moscow, “on the edge of geography,” in the Kursk province, in the small village of Semenovka, two Bartrams sat in a modest workshop. Dmitry Ernestovich and Nikolai Dmitrievich. Father and son. Dmitry Ernestovich made children's toys, and little Nikolai Dmitrievich looked at it with delight. Then he began to help. Then he started making things himself. The story is ordinary.
If Bartram the son had been an ordinary village guy with a passion for handicrafts, he would have lived his whole life in the Kursk province, in his native village, making simple horses, bird whistles and bears with anvils, perhaps - if he was very lucky - he would have received help from the Moscow Handicraft Museum, but this is unlikely. This Moscow is far away.
But Nikolai Dmitrievich was not like that from childhood. He decided to devote his life to a children's toy. Collect everything you can. And open a museum.
"Toy Past and Present"
It was necessary to get an education, and the young toy maker went to Moscow, to the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. But he was constantly sick, had to miss classes, couldn’t cope with assignments - and as a result, he left for his homeland. And there all these ailments suddenly left him - with what, with what, and with the ecology in the Kursk province, things were not bad. And so that time would not pass in vain, our hero started a training workshop for toy carpentry production in his village, which he led for a decade.
V. Serov, portrait of Ivan Egorovich Zabelin; 1892 Image from wikipedia.org
Bartram was lucky - fate brought him together with Ivan Zabelin himself, the director of the Historical Museum. From him he became infected with a love of history, of Russian antiquity. And a workshop in the Kursk outback began, in addition to the traditional one, to also produce a historical toy.
And then - trips around Russia, searching for interesting, characteristic, unique samples. Expanding the boundaries of interests - traveling around France, Switzerland, Germany. Not as a tourist, but with the same goal - to study local toys and, if possible, buy something for your own collection with your meager income. He already understood perfectly well that sooner or later this modest collection would become a public museum, the only one of its kind. And, denying himself everything, he walked towards this goal.
City trash
Bartram enters the service of the institution that seems to be closest to him in spirit - the Handicraft Museum. But already at that time he was thinking about something more - about creating a specialized toy museum. One of Bartram’s associates, E. Ovchinnikova, recalled how Nikolai Dmitrievich went towards his goal: “Bartram dreamed of creating a toy museum. To attract public interest in this, he organizes exhibitions one after another at the Handicraft Museum, accompanying them with an appeal to parents and teachers about the role of toys in the upbringing and development of a child. In a small brochure written for the 1909 exhibition, entitled “Toys Past and Present,” Bartram focuses on the plot and decoration of toys; he emphasizes that the folk toy is closer and more understandable to children and expresses his negative attitude towards the factory products with which children are surrounded: “A soulless factory toy quietly destroys the aesthetic needs of a child.”
Photo from babyblog.ru
Bartram writes about the need to study Russian toys and their history, and calls for collecting irretrievably lost examples of toys of the past.
“We must hurry to collect old and folk toys before everything is destroyed and not everything is sold out in the form of souvenirs and is not lost in the trash of the cities.”
The following year, 1910, Bartram organized a second exhibition, “How Toys Are Made,” which was a continuation of the 1909 exhibition. Handicrafts were on display here, introducing visitors to different types of handicrafts and their history. The exhibition was accompanied by a visual demonstration of the processes of making toys; Wood carvers, turners, sculptors and draftsmen demonstrated their work. Toys were also sold at the exhibition. The set on the theme of the fairy tale “The Hare and the Hedgehog,” made according to Bartram’s drawing, was accompanied by his miniature book with a picture and the text of the fairy tale.”
Matryoshka dolls of the late 19th century from the collection of N.D. Bartram, now stored in the Sergiev Posad Museum of toys. Photo from babyblog.ru
Meanwhile, Bartram expanded his range of interests. I became interested in architectural toys - “I made models of world masterpieces of architecture. He collected children's furniture, dishes, school supplies - everything related to the golden period of human life.
And I never tired of telling everyone around me about the future museum: “You know, every toy is a mirror of human life... If I systematize all the toys I have, I can even create an exhibition of a small Museum of Toys from them. This will be great! The kids will come, it will be possible to observe them, and do scientific work!”
And the artist Serov said about Bartram: “I have never in my life met a person who had such an abyss of taste, such inexhaustible creative initiative and a thorough knowledge of crafts.”
Toys of the early 20th century from the collection of N.D. Bartram, now stored in the Sergiev Posad Museum of toys. Photo from babyblog.ru
Apollo vs man's toys
Alexander Benois wrote in the Apollo magazine: “Now in Moscow they have decided to save the production of folk toys, because, indeed, it is falling, dying out, squeezed by factory cheapness (although what could be cheaper than the Trinity toy?). Probably, extinction is promoted not only by economic, but also by “aesthetic” considerations. Factory-made toys seem more elegant to the common people, less “peasant.” But I positively do not find an answer within myself: should this artificial salvation be welcomed or not?
Bartram himself, who is at the head of this matter, is such a charming fanatic of ideas, such a hard worker, such a connoisseur, such an artist, he has already managed to do so much that I cannot help but wish him further success. But, now, a suspicion creeps in - isn’t this “aestheticism”, isn’t it being done for gentlemen amateurs, isn’t it for grown-up cultured philistines, isn’t it they who will be the only consumers of this “folk children’s art”? And if this is so, then for some reason everything now becomes boring...
Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram, 1921. Image: nashenasledie.livejournal.com
And yet, isn’t it better to have handicrafts from the “Bartram” period on the shelves and bookcases of living rooms, rather than those luxurious, “Parisian” objets de lux that sparkle and seduce the bourgeoisie from behind the darkened glass of large shops on Nevsky? If you look at the matter this way, then God grant it to prosper, and this is an extra step away from the vulgarity that is eating away at everything.”
The “lovely idea fanatic” gets his way
And finally, it happened. It would seem at the most inopportune moment. In 1918, the Toy Museum opened in Moscow, at number 8 on Smolensky Boulevard. The country is in ruins, but the toy enthusiast, despising cold, hunger, and other misfortunes, opened the first exhibition in his own apartment, in four rooms. Well, he’s no stranger to this. Even in his prosperous years, he did not live in luxury at all - he spent all his money on toys.
He was helped by two equally selfless enthusiasts - masters I. Oveshkov and A. Chushkin. Above the entrance it was written: “Children, go to your museum.”
The collector's apartment was notable. His daughter recalled: “Wooden, unpolished, geometrically carved furniture from the Semyonov workshop, an ottoman covered with homespun cloth, with cushions made of printed material and Chinese fabric; on the walls there are popular prints: “Babelina - the heroine of Greece”, “How mice buried a cat”, “Ladder of life”, etc.; hanging display case and cabinet with toys: Sergiev, Bogorodsk, Vyatka, Gorodets, German, Japanese and many others. They attracted us children, like everything unusual and fabulous. On a carved hanging shelf stood a large green-blue glazed jug from Skopin, of an unusual shape, with the nose of either a bird or an animal. In addition to all this other stuff, Bartram collected netsuke - Japanese figurines, objects of children’s life: textbooks, notebooks, children’s dishes.”
The building of the Khrushchev-Seleznev estate on Prechistenka (photo from 1926), transferred to the Toy Museum. Photo: zhivayaistoria.livejournal.com
The museum grew and was gradually replenished with new exhibits (including from other museum repositories and once private collections in Moscow). In 1924, he was given the most luxurious premises - the former Khrushchev-Seleznev mansion on Prechistenka, 12. The huge collection was spaciously housed in the halls, and the walls were decorated with a collection of children's portraits of the last century.
In this museum, children were allowed to touch the exhibits, moreover, to play with them. On Sundays there were performances of experimental puppet theater. It is not surprising that this institution was one of the city's most popular museums. But before the war, the museum was given new premises - this time in Zagorsk.
The building of the future Toy Museum in Sergiev Posad. Photo beginning 20th century. Photo: nashenasledie.livejournal.com
The place was not chosen by chance - after all, the toy there has long been famous throughout Russia. The guide to the Lavra wrote: “Some of the artisans, along with preparing hand-carved wooden toys, also prepare wooden spoons, which, according to legend, served as the basis for the toy craft in Posad. Most artisans make paper toys and paper masks.”
A rare four-minute film from 1927 directed by Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky, which depicts Bartram himself, the old building of the Toy Museum in Moscow, exhibits that you cannot see now even in storerooms:
The writer Mikhail Osorgin also praised this craft: “Painted dolls of monks and nuns were popular at fairs, and the merchant Khrapunov made them at his artisanal factory in the Bogorodsky district of the Moscow province, and also ordered them from single artisans, of whom there were many in the toy district near Sergiev Posad . They made wooden monks with painting, and they also made clay ones, hollow inside, with a neck in a hood - like a flask for various drinks.”
In addition to toys collected from all over the world, there were works by Nikolai Dmitrievich himself. However, not everyone was delighted with his works. M. A. Voloshin wrote in his essay “Dance”: “The simplified scenery of “Karamazov” and “The Idiot”, Craig’s screens in “Hamlet” are the same as the stylized newest German toys or Bartram’s toys in relation to the real “Peasant” and the bear." They have no secret connection with the deepest regions of memory. They are possible. But they are not necessary."
But, regardless of the grades, Nikolai Bartram calmly did his job, went his own way. And as a result, today we can see what our great-great-grandfathers and great-great-grandmothers played. Yes, this museum does not claim to be world famous. Several small rooms filled with simple children's toys. But if it were not for this small museum, created through the efforts of a little ascetic, the picture of the world would not be complete.
We, the old museum workers, warmly remember one of our first directors, an artist and major figure in the field of folk art - Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram.
He was a multi-talented person who combined the talent of an artist with the inquisitive mind of a researcher and the inexhaustible energy of an organizer. Nikolai Dmitrievich’s role in organizing the work of a number of artistic crafts during the difficult period of their existence, namely before the First World War and in the first decades of Soviet power, was exceptionally great.
One of the main and most active organizers of the Handicraft Museum, Bartram directed all the forces of his mind and heart to rally the masters of folk art around this scientific center.
He paid especially much attention to the crafts of the Zagorsk region, in particular Bogorodskaya carving.
Children's toys were the area of folk art closest to him; he dedicated several of his books and articles to it, laid the foundation for its serious study and brought it to public attention for the first time.
Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram (1873-1931) was born into a family of artists and began to be interested in art early. While still a student at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, he became interested in Russian folk art and began illustrating fairy tales. After graduating from college, I did a lot of ethnography, studied folk toys in the Historical Museum under the leadership of I. E. Zabelin and on the material of private collections (A. N. Benois, P. I. Shchukin, V. N. Kharuzina, L. G. Orshansky, N.P. Shabelskaya and others). His sketches and watercolors, made in those years, were subsequently included as illustrations in a number of publications *.
* (N. D. Bartram. Russian folk toy, table. 85; Atlas of A. A. Bobrinsky. Folk Russian wooden products, vol. VI. M., 1911; Collection "Toys, their history and meaning." M., 1912, color. inserts.)
Bartram placed great importance on the process of making decorative arts and studied production processes himself, working as a woodworker, painter and weaver. This knowledge of the technical side of production greatly helped him in working on his own toy samples.
While studying the history of toys, Bartram made several trips abroad to the main centers of the Western toy industry, visited museums in Paris, Berlin, and visited Nuremberg and Sonnenberg in Germany.
In 1893, in the village of Semenovka, Lgovsky district, Kursk province, on the initiative of Nikolai Dmitrievich, a training workshop for toy carpentry was created. Here, based on Bartram’s drawings and under his leadership, a number of samples of toys based on ancient Russian themes and illustrations for Russian folk tales were created (the “Boyarin” piggy bank, Anika the Warrior, clicks, etc.) * . The historical coloring of the images in the toys was combined with the peculiar humor so characteristic of Bartram’s artistic creativity. In those same years, based on Bartram’s drawings, complex toy sets on ethnographic themes were made (the “Nenets” set: chum, dog or reindeer harness; Kyrgyz cart with a camel, plowing on camels, etc.). In these toys he skillfully combines carpentry and turning techniques; The figure is simplified to a moving mannequin dressed in a national costume, the heads are made chiseled**. He implements the same principle of toys with movable arms and legs in ethnographic toys on sheets for cutting and gluing in the appendix to the magazines “Guiding Light” (1904), “Firefly” and others.
* (Handicraft Museum of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo. Price list for the toy department. M., 1913, p. 5, No. 32-57.)
** (Subsequently, all these things became part of the assortment of the Handicraft Museum (see the price list of the Handicraft Museum, p. 3, No. 33, p. 4, No. 37-43).)
In the Lgov workshop, Bartram for the first time carried out an interesting experience in artistic education. He tried to develop in students, along with mastering carpentry techniques, creative initiative, observation, and the ability to convey impressions of reality in the artistic image of a toy - “to base the toy on the surrounding life, observation, ethnographic, everyday principles” *. This idea runs like a red thread through all of Bartram’s artistic work in the field of toys.
* (Lev Orshansky. Historical sketch of the development of toys and toy production in the West and in Russia. Collection "Toy, its history and meaning." M., 1912, pp. 63-64.)
In the toys created based on Bartram's drawings, a certain trend is already emerging - to create thematic game complexes designed for collective play by children *.
* (Subsequently, the entire assortment of the Lgov workshop was transferred to the workshops of the Handicraft Museum of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo.)
At the same time, Bartram continued to illustrate books for children (1903-1904), and collaborated in the children's magazines "Firefly" and "Guiding Light".
A small book, published as a supplement to the Guiding Light magazine, describes the work of a toy workshop in the village of Semenovka, in which teenage boys were taught carpentry. The book is illustrated with samples of toys from this workshop, made according to Bartram's drawings *. Since 1904, he began working in the Moscow provincial zemstvo as an artist and created the Museum of Designs in Moscow, which was located on the second floor above the store of the Handicraft Museum in Leontyevsky Lane (now Stanislavsky Street). From 1904 to 1917, Nikolai Dmitrievich was in charge of the Handicraft Museum.
* (Bug. Small business of small people. Drawings by N. D. Bartram. Supplement to the magazine "Guiding Light" for 1904.)
The museum collected not only toys, but also other, most diverse objects of folk decorative and applied art. The working rooms of the museum were literally filled with northern carved and painted spinning wheels, bottoms, chests, cabinets, carved frames, frames and other items. With this collection, Bartram laid the foundation for a rich collection of folk art monuments in the Handicraft Museum.
(Handicraft Museum of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo. Toy department price list, page 1.)
Possessing a rare ability to attract people to work and infect them with his love for his work, Nikolai Dmitrievich soon united a whole team of artists around the Handicraft Museum. These were V. A. Vatagin, M. D. Ezuchevsky, I. I. Oveshkov, N. N. Sobolev (furniture), I. I. Galkin (painting), T. A. Shambinago (lace), N. Ya Davydova (embroidery), E. G. Telyakovsky, A. I. Velsky, S. S. Goloushev and others. By creating new models of toys, artists fought against the dominance of German factory products on the Russian market, sought to revive domestic folk crafts and update their range.
Bartram's toys on the themes of fables and fairy tales were often sharp satires on bourgeois society. As an example, let's point out the toy - the "War of the Mushrooms" set, created on the eve of the 1905 revolution. The sale of the set as a whole was prohibited; Only individual figures were sold.
In the 80s-90s, the zemstvo organized various workshops in which it united the best artisans, supplied them with raw materials and samples, and organized the sale of products. In 1891, a zemstvo toy workshop was opened in Sergiev Posad, the head of which was V.I. Borutsky. An experienced production worker with excellent business and organizational skills, he established and deployed a training system in the workshop, attracting the most qualified craftsmen of Sergiev Posad to work. Borutsky produced an improved range of toys, increased their sales operations, expanded the sales market, and since 1904 established strong ties with large Western companies. The workshop's products were exhibited at world exhibitions in Liege (1905) and Milan (1906), at Leipzig fairs and firmly conquered foreign markets. Bartram is the first of the artists to begin working with the artisans of the Bogorodsky district; regularly travels to Sergiev Posad and Bogorodskoye, handing over drawings to artisans.
In an effort to enrich and revive folk tradition, he introduces artisans to various engravings and popular prints, giving them complete freedom of choice. This is how compositions on the themes of folk popular prints arose in toys. Working with an artel of doll dressers in Sergiev Posad, in 1912-1913 he created a whole series of new ethnographic and ancient national costumes based on materials from the Rumyantsev Museum (about 30 samples) and updated the old assortment.
Bartram's activities left a deep imprint on the life and work of the artisans of Sergiev Posad and Bogorodskoye. He supported and developed their natural keen observation, the ability to capture and convey in a carved toy the most characteristic and typical - everything that has long been the basis of laconicism and expressiveness in folk art. Nikolai Dmitrievich knew how to support the most gifted and thoughtful artisans. Such was the talented Bogorodsk master Andrei Yakovlevich Chushkin (1882-1933), with whom Bartram worked from 1908 until the last days of his life *.
* (A. Ya. Chushkin taught at the Bogorodskaya school and at the Zemstvo educational workshop in Sergiev. Since 1923 he worked at the Toy Museum in Moscow; Since 1927 he taught courses in the art of carving toys.)
Bartram dreamed of creating a toy museum. To attract public interest in this, he organizes exhibitions one after another at the Handicraft Museum, accompanying them with an appeal to parents and teachers about the role of toys in the upbringing and development of a child. In a small brochure written for the 1909 exhibition, entitled “Toys Past and Present,” Bartram focuses on the plot and decoration of toys; he emphasizes that the folk toy is closer and more understandable to children and expresses his negative attitude towards the factory products with which children are surrounded: “A soulless factory toy quietly destroys the aesthetic needs of a child.” Bartram writes about the need to study Russian toys and their history, and calls for collecting irretrievably lost examples of toys of the past. “We must hurry to collect old and folk toys before everything is destroyed and not everything is sold out in the form of souvenirs and is not lost in the trash of the cities.” Then he continues: “Next, it is desirable to approach the creation of a Museum of Russian Toys, which would serve as a source for the further development of the toy business in Russia and material for its study.” *
* (N. D. Bartram. About toys in connection with the exhibition “Toys of the Past and Present” at the Moscow Handicraft Museum. 1909, pp. 7, 11, 12.)
At the end of his brochure, Bartram appealed to the public to send information about toys, gingerbread, local fairs and local legends associated with them to the Craft Museum. Obviously, he intended to use this information for his work on the history of the toy.
The following year, 1910, Bartram organized a second exhibition, “How Toys Are Made,” which was a continuation of the 1909 exhibition. Handicrafts were on display here, introducing visitors to different types of handicrafts and their history. The exhibition was accompanied by a visual demonstration of the processes of making toys; Wood carvers, turners, sculptors and draftsmen demonstrated their work. Toys were also sold at the exhibition. The set on the theme of the fairy tale "The Hare and the Hedgehog", made according to Bartram's drawing, was accompanied by his miniature book with a picture and the text of the fairy tale.
In 1911 and 1912, on the initiative of Nikolai Dmitrievich and under his editorship, two collections “The Toy is the Joy of Children” and “The Toy, Its History and Significance” were published, in which teachers, ethnographers, and production workers participated with articles on the history of toys and the organization of the handicraft toy industry. and the educational significance of folk toys.
After the Great October Socialist Revolution, Bartram was sent by the trade union to the People's Commissariat for Education in the Department for the Protection of Monuments of Art and Antiquities, where he worked for many years as a member of the board of the Main Museum and as chairman of the commission on decorative arts.
The activities of Nikolai Dmitrievich during this period deserve to be especially noted. At that time, a number of new museums were created in Moscow on his initiative and with his close participation. Thus, in 1918, the Household Museum of the “40s” was founded, located in the Khomyakov mansion on Sobachaya Playground. With the active assistance of Nikolai Dmitrievich, the Leo Tolstoy Museum was opened on Kropotkinskaya Street, then a museum of furniture, porcelain and a number of other museums of decorative arts.
But Nikolai Dmitrievich’s cherished dream was still the creation of a special museum for children. And he managed to do it. The State Toy Museum was founded in 1918 by the Museum Department of the NKP, and Bartram remained its director and leader until the end of his life.
The idea of creating such a museum was new and original: it confronted its founder with the difficult task of collecting exhibits.
From the very first days of its existence, the museum was given the property of nationalized toy stores in Moscow, which marked the beginning of the collection. The collection of folk toys was carried out in the centers of toy production, among the artisans of Sergiev Posad and Bogorodskoye. Nikolai Dmitrievich himself, with a backpack on his back, never tired, collected samples of toys and “boobs”, looked for them in attics and closets, or bought them from old masters who were dying out. These toys served as the basis for the department of the “People's Peasant Toy” museum, one of the richest in the Soviet Union. A valuable addition to the department was a significant collection of clay toys, some of which came to the museum from individual collectors, ethnographers and artists. Exhibits also came from other museums and collections: from the Stroganov School, the Porcelain Museum, from the State Museum Fund, antiques, from private collections of the Shabelskys, Tsereteli, Kharuzina, Corsini, Belyakova, Steinbach and others.
From the very beginning, the collection of exhibits was carried out according to the following main sections: 1. Folk toys; 2. Historical toys (“a toy is a mirror of life”); 3. Puppet theater; 4. "From play to knowledge" and 5. Book for children *.
* (N. Bartram and E. Ovchinnikova. Toy Museum. L., 1928.)
The beginning of the puppet theater department was the puppet theater of 1840-1860, acquired from one of the showroom masters - Ivan Afinogenovich Zaitsev *. The parsley dolls came to the museum from the hands of the same old wandering parsley makers who walked around Moscow courtyards, showing “Parsley” to children.
* (Subsequently, I. A. Zaitsev demonstrated a puppet theater in the theater hall of the museum on Sundays. Museum researchers conducted observations of children's perception of the performances. Now this farcical puppet theater is located in the museum at the puppet theater of S. V. Obraztsov.)
With the transfer of the Toy Museum to a new premises (house No. 12/2 on Kropotkin Street) in 1924, the activities of the museum, the value of the collected collections, its exhibition and enormous popularity among children began to attract the attention of other institutions and organizations.
On the initiative of Nikolai Dmitrievich, in 1922, at the Museum of Toys, the Moscow College of Handicraft Industry organized the “Department of Artistic Toys,” that is, courses for training specialists and instructors in toys. The courses had sections: carved and turned toys, papier-mâché and soft toys. Bartram united around the museum such specialist production artists, who taught courses and worked on creating new designs, as B. A. Meshcheryakov, N. A. Leman, V. I. Mukhina, A. N. Izergina, A. Ya. Chushkin , I. I. Galkin, N. A. Arinin and others. Under the leadership and editing of Bartram, a series of books “With Your Own Hands” (popular manuals on making toys for children) was published and the manual “The ABC of Toy Carving” was created.
During these years, a certain turning point occurred in Bartram’s work as a toy artist. He decisively abandons the elements of modernism in the toy and creates new examples of Soviet realistic toys. Basically, these are complex sets of toys designed for group games in kindergarten ("City", "Farm", "Barnyard", etc.). The City toy was a great success at the 1925 Paris International Exhibition.
Thus, thanks to Bartram, the Toy Museum was one of the first in the Soviet Union to join the ranks of a new type of “industrial” museum, setting itself the task of not only collecting and studying toys and games, but also training new specialists. And most importantly, the task of directly influencing production in order to improve product quality and create samples of new Soviet toys for modern industry. For this purpose, artistic toy courses were created at the museum and a production workshop was opened in 1929, which Nikolai Dmitrievich led until the last days of his life.
Bartram also showed his ability to attract people to work and ignite them with his enthusiasm when organizing a number of exhibitions, which were a kind of show of children's toys and games. The “Building Materials” exhibition was a huge success, attracting special attention from the managers and teachers of kindergartens and playgrounds. The connection with publishing houses arose during the organization of the Printed Games exhibition; A conference of production workers and teachers was held.
Bartram and the museum team first raised the question of the need to organize a research center - the Institute for the Study of Toys, where new models could be developed and tested in practice, and production could be monitored and assisted.
It is impossible not to note Bartram’s social activities. He is one of the founders of the “Free Children's Home”, which opened in Moscow back in 1905; on his initiative, the trade union of arts workers (RABIS) was created in 1916; At his own suggestion, together with the employees of the Toy Museum, a Scientific and Artistic Council on Toys and Playing Materials was created.
Organized by Bartram in 1928, an exhibition and viewing of performances by puppet theaters in Moscow, Leningrad and other cities helped unite the teams of these theaters, in which such wonderful artists as N. Ya. and I. S. Efimov, S. V. Obraztsov, V. worked. P. Khersonskaya, V.V. Khvostenko and others. The groups of these theaters also performed at the museum. All this happened long before the puppet theater gained universal recognition and state puppet theaters began to open. N.D. Bartram and Yu. Zhelyabuzhsky staged a children's film (3-dimensional animation) "The Adventures of a Doodle" - an entertaining story of the adventures of a wooden man carved by A. Ya. Pushkin.
Nikolai Dmitrievich had inexhaustible energy and was a very kind, sympathetic person. His gentle humor often supported himself and those close to him in difficult times. Of particular note is Bartram's ability to approach children, joke with them, and immediately win their sympathy. He was extremely popular and loved among children; the museum, in their minds, was inseparable from the personality of Nikolai Dmitrievich - they nicknamed him “Uncle Museum”.
Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram, devoting all his strength, knowledge, all his energy to a children's toy, did a great, necessary job. He managed to attract the attention and interest of the public, wide circles of teachers, artists and production workers to the issues of studying and producing toys, and, what is especially valuable for us, Bartram always considered the toy as an important tool of aesthetic education, as an integral part of folk artistic culture.
Can you imagine that in post-revolutionary hungry and cold Moscow a person, saving even on his own food, created a Toy Museum? The name of this enthusiast, who tried to prove in practice that all the best should belong to children, was Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram. By this time he was already a famous artist, a historian of decorative and applied arts, and the author of several books. And collecting toys, objects of applied art and folk life turned for him from a hobby into his life’s work. It is thanks to him that we can now see what toys children used to entertain themselves 100, 300, and 500 years ago...
Bartram Nikolai Dmitrievich (1873 -1931) - artist, art historian, collector, founder of the first Toy Museum in Russia. Nikolai Dmitrievich was born into the family of watercolor artist Dmitry Ernestovich Bartram on August 24, 1873 in the small village of Semenovka, Lgov district, Kursk province. As a child, Nikolai loved to sit in the workshop, watching how new wooden toys were born under the chisel in his father’s hands. He himself learned to use carpentry tools early and draw well.
Nikolai studied at home, then entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but due to poor health he was able to study there for only two years. In 1891 I had to return to my native estate. Gradually gaining strength in 1893, in order not to sit idle, he created a training workshop for toy carpentry production. He led this workshop for ten years, supporting and developing folk arts and crafts, training masters of decorative and applied arts.
During this period, Nikolai met honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Ivan Yegorovich Zabelin, head of the Russian Historical Museum, who had a great influence on him.
In his workshop, Nikolai began to recreate not only folk household items, but also ancient children's toys. He began to study their history and production features, began to collect a collection of toys, and with them various items of Russian antiquity.
The search for toys and household items captured Nikolai, he began to enthusiastically travel around Russia, visiting handicraft centers. The collection quickly expanded; it included ancient peasant clothes from various provinces of Russia, as well as pottery products - from primitive clay whistles to glazed figurines, and gingerbread boards. But his childhood hobbies showed particular interest - he collected wooden carved toys. Soon his collection of toys became the best in Russia.
Bartram also became interested in the toy industry. To get to know her better, he made several long trips abroad in 1900-1903. Nikolai visited France, Switzerland, and Germany.
In 1904 N.D. Bartram finally moved to Moscow. His house quickly turned into a kind of museum.
Nikolai Dmitrievich found a service in Moscow that was akin to his hobbies. He taught at Handicraft Training Workshops. In 1907-17 he served in the Handicraft and Industrial Museum of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo (now the Museum of Folk Art), where he founded and headed the department of samples. Nikolai Dmitrievich has a new hobby - architectural toys. Based on drawings, engravings, blueprints and our own measurements of historical buildings, the workshop began to produce model toys that reproduced ancient buildings, cathedrals, fortress towers and even small corners of old Moscow.
Bartram's ascetic activity caused widespread concern.public interest. It is interesting that in addition to toys and objects of decorative and applied art, Nikolai Dmitrievich collected an excellent collection of children's furniture, dishes, school supplies and textbooks, children's books and albums. Of particular interest and considerable value was his collection of children's portraits by Russian and foreign artists of the 18th-19th centuries. Orientalists were surprised by the completeness and diversity of his collection of netsuke - Japanese miniature sculpture.
Bartram had long been nurturing the idea of creating a special toy museum.
And such a museum was created in 1918 in Moscow. Initially, he occupied several rooms in a mansion on Smolensky Boulevard (this building has not survived to this day). The museum was quickly replenished, toys came from old noble estates and royal residences, nationalized factories and shops, requisitioned apartments of “enemies of the revolution” and from ordinary citizens. There was a catastrophic shortage of space, and in 1924 the Toy Museum was allocated one of the most beautiful Moscow mansions - the former Khrushchev-Seleznev estate on Prechistenka (nowadays it houses the State Pushkin Museum).
The museum was very popular; only the Tretyakov Gallery surpassed it in terms of attendance. This was a real world of childhood, here you could touch and pick up toys. Bartram led the museum until his death. He donated most of his collection to the museum free of charge.
Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram died on July 16, 1931 and was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. And created by him Toy Museum is still alive in Sergiev Posad.
with the participation of Nikolai Bartram.
MUSEUM OF TOYS IN SERGIEV POSAD
The RAO Toy Museum has been located in Sergiev Posad (until 1991 - Zagorsk) since 1931.
Bartram Nikolai Dmitrievich began collecting his collection in the early 1910s. Initially, the Toy Museum began to take shape in the apartment of the artist and collector himself on the Garden Ring (Zubovsky Boulevard, building 15, apartment 13 - N.D. Bartram’s address on his business card). The museum was founded in 1918 in the same place on the Garden Ring, but already on Smolensky Boulevard, in house No. 8.
The Toy Museum was opened to the public on October 17, 1918 at number 8 on Smolensky Boulevard. The one-story mansion with a mezzanine was preserved thanks to the idea of locating a museum in it. Before the revolution, it belonged to the widow of the largest chemical technologist, manager of several Russian textile factories, honorary citizen of Moscow, member of the State Council Mikhail L. Losev, Evdokia Ivanovna Loseva, née Chizhova, who became the artist’s second wife. An area of 250 square meters, of which 200 meters was allocated for exhibition, was quite enough to present the original museum collections, constantly replenished thanks to the energy and a certain enterprise of its founder.
Officially founded on October 17, 1918, the museum was still opened to visitors only in 1921, and three years later, in 1925, it moved to a new premises on Kropotkinskaya Street (now Prechistenka) - the Khrushchev-Seleznyov estate, house 12/2. Today this building is occupied by the A. S. Pushkin Literary Museum. Here the Toy Museum was opened on January 5 and expanded its area to 5 halls and 600 square meters occupied by exhibitions.
A wide coverage of children's life allowed the Toy Museum to participate in many exhibitions. In March-April 1922, he opened his exhibition activities by taking part in the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition, organized by the Academy of Art Sciences in its Scientific Demonstration Department. In the fall of 1925 and winter of 1926, viewings of all puppet theaters in Moscow were organized within the museum’s walls, and in March-April of the following 1927, there was an exhibition of puppet theaters, during which puppet performances were held. In the workshop at the museum, artistic toy courses continued their activities, annually training 300 specialists in this type of artistic creativity.
An excellent collection, entertaining exhibitions, innovative methods of working with children - all this caused the unprecedented popularity of the museum. In terms of attendance, the Toy Museum was surpassed only by the Tretyakov Gallery. N.D. Bartram remained at the head of the Toy Museum until his death in 1931.
In 1931, the Toy Museum was transferred from Moscow to Zagorsk near Moscow. From 1980 to the present day, the Toy Museum has been located in an old mansion of a former commercial school above Kelarsky Pond. The museum is located in one of the most beautiful corners of Sergiev Posad, opposite the Trinity Lavra of Sergius. This red brick house, built in the historicist style, is today, without exaggeration, an important city landmark..
Can you imagine that in post-revolutionary hungry and cold Moscow a person, saving even on his own food, created a Toy Museum? The name of this enthusiast, who tried to prove in practice that all the best should belong to children, was Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram. By this time he was already a famous artist, a historian of decorative and applied arts, and the author of several books. And collecting toys, objects of applied art and folk life turned for him from a hobby into his life’s work. It is thanks to him that we can now see what toys children used to entertain themselves 100, 300, and 500 years ago.
Nikolai Dmitrievich was born into the family of watercolor artist Dmitry Ernestovich Bartram on August 24, 1873 in the small village of Semenovka, Lgov district, Kursk province. Nikolai was the fourth child in the family. Having become an adult, he remained a child at heart, but a child collector. Little Nikolai's father was an artist by profession and loved to make various things with his own hands. In my father’s office there was a workbench and a lathe, and a shelf with tools hung on the wall. One day, with these tools, Father Kolya built a four-wheeled stroller for the children with a back painted with flowers. From an early age, his father instilled in the boy a love of art. As a child, Nikolai loved to sit in the workshop, watching how new wooden toys were born under the chisel in his father’s hands or sheets of thick paper were covered with intricate watercolors. He himself learned to use carpentry tools early and draw well.
Nikolai studied at home under the close supervision of his mother, and when the time came to decide on his future profession, without hesitation he chose the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but due to poor health he was able to study there for only two years. In 1891 I had to return to my native estate. Country air, honey, fresh milk and medicinal herbs were able to do what doctors in the capital could not. Nikolai became noticeably stronger and in 1893, in order not to sit idle, he created a training workshop for toy carpentry production. He led this workshop for ten years, supporting and developing folk arts and crafts, training masters of decorative and applied arts.
During this period, Nikolai met the honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Ivan Yegorovich Zabelin, who had a great influence on him. The founder and director of the Russian Historical Museum, Zabelin was passionate about Russian antiquity. He instilled in the aspiring artist his passion for the past, for ancient monuments represented by simple objects of folk art.
It is worth noting that Nikolai was lucky to have good people. Acquaintance with an amazing woman, professor-ethnographer Vera Nikolaevna Kharuzina, helped him better understand the deep cultural processes developing among the people, and see the original art of the Russian peoples in everyday objects.
Fascinated by toys, Bartram began to study the history of their production in Russia and abroad. At the same time, he began collecting a personal collection of toys and various antiques.
In search of toys, Nikolai Dmitrievich traveled throughout the Kursk province. Along with toys, he brought antique women's headdresses, silk scarves woven with gold flowers, silk sundresses with padded warmers, printed prints, woven belts, embroidery, gingerbread boards and gingerbread cookies themselves in the shape of horses, fish, roosters, clay watering whistles in the shape of rams and horses. , ducks, household items.
Later, he began to regularly travel around the leading centers of handicrafts in the Moscow, Vladimir, and Nizhny Novgorod provinces. He always returned home with a rich catch. He was interested in “skeleton” dolls (the cheapest type of doll), “waist” dolls (graceful slender dolls with a distinctly narrow waist), young lady dolls, figurines of sailors, coachmen, toy furniture, carts, sleighs.
In 1900-1903 N.D. Bartram made several extended trips abroad to become familiar with the toy industry and museum collections. Bartram visited Paris, Berlin, Nuremberg, as well as many cities in Thuringia, Saxony, Switzerland, ancient toy-making centers. From abroad he brought suitcases full of modern and antique dolls, horsemen, warriors, animals, play sets, cubes, books, and printed board games.
In 1904, when N.D. Bartram finally settled in Moscow; he already had a significant collection. This is how Nikolai Dmitrievich’s daughter, A.N., remembers the living room near this house in Kaloshin Lane on Arbat. Izergina: “Wooden, unpolished, geometrically carved furniture from the Semenovskaya workshop, an ottoman covered with homespun cloth, with cushions made of printed material and Chinese fabric; on the walls there are popular prints: “Babelina - the heroine of Greece”, “How mice buried a cat”, “Ladder of life”, etc.; hanging display case and cabinet with toys: Sergiev, Bogorodsk, Vyatka, Gorodets, German, Japanese and many others. They attracted us children, like everything unusual and fabulous.
On a carved hanging shelf stood a large green-blue glazed jug from Skopin, of an unusual shape, with the nose of either a bird or an animal.”
In Moscow, from 1906 to 1917, Bartram was in charge of the art department of the Handicraft Museum. At this museum he created a workshop for the production of toys. Here, based on his sketches, with excellent skill and art, dolls with porcelain heads were made, dressed in folk costumes of different provinces of Russia and in clothing based on samples of the 16th-17th centuries.
At the same time, a passion for architectural toys began. Nikolai Dmitrievich made “expeditions” through the streets of old Moscow, photographing mansions, churches, and cathedrals. I made the architectural measurements myself. The collected materials formed the basis for new original toys “Red Gate”, “Sukharev Tower”, “Watchtower”, “Corner of Old Moscow”.
Bartram's work at the Craft Museum received widespread public support. On the pages of Apollo magazine, the artist and toy collector Alexander Benois wrote: “Now in Moscow they have decided to save the production of folk toys, because, indeed, it is falling, dying out, squeezed by factory cheapness... Bartram, who is at the head of this business, is such a charming fanatic of the idea, such a hard worker, such a connoisseur, such an artist, he has already managed to do so much that I cannot help but wish him further success.”
It is interesting that in addition to toys and objects of decorative and applied art, Nikolai Dmitrievich collected an excellent collection of children's furniture, dishes, school supplies and textbooks, children's books and albums. Of particular interest and considerable value was his collection of children's portraits by Russian and foreign artists of the 18th-19th centuries. Orientalists were surprised by the completeness and diversity of his collection of netsuke - Japanese miniature sculpture.
Bartram had long been nurturing the idea of creating a special toy museum. Nikolai Dmitrievich’s daughter recalled: “You know,” he said, “after all, every toy is a mirror of human life... If all the toys I have are systematized, I can even create an exhibition of a small Toy Museum from them. This will be great! The kids will come, it will be possible to observe them, and do scientific work!”
In 1918, the Toy Museum opened in Moscow. The first exhibition was located in four rooms of his apartment (Smolensky Boulevard, 8). The following sections were distinguished: folk toys, puppet theater toys, educational games, entertaining books. Gradually, the museum was replenished with proceeds from nationalized stores, warehouses, factories, mansions, and estates. Many valuable things were brought from the royal residence in Livadia.
The domestic section included, in addition, a wide variety of antiques, making up that “clothing background” against which the toys looked especially organic, “at home.” There were pieces of children's furniture, clothing, dishes, school supplies, school visual aids, books, and albums. All this taken together made it possible to vividly and attractively recreate the world of childhood. Numerous portraits of children by artists of the 18th-19th centuries and an incomparable “children’s” art gallery also served this purpose.
In the meeting of N.D. Bartram presented Russian folk costume, household utensils, a collection of fans, and playing cards. A special place was occupied by the collection of netsuke - works of Japanese miniature decorative and applied plastic arts made of wood, stone, ivory and other materials.
In 1924, the museum was given one of the most beautiful mansions in Moscow - the Khrushchev-Seleznev estate on Prechistenka (now the State Pushkin Museum is located there). An excellent collection, an entertaining exhibition, innovative methods of working with children (you were allowed to touch the exhibition with your hands) - all this caused the unprecedented popularity of the Bartram Museum. In terms of attendance, it was not so large, second only to the Tretyakov Gallery. At the head of this surprisingly lively and attractive museum is N.D. Bartram remained until his death. N. D. Bartram remained the true soul of the museum. The children unmistakably guessed this, giving a childishly precise and very loving definition to Nikolai Dmitrievich - “Uncle Museum”.
N.D. Bartram was well aware of the historical and cultural value of the things he collected. He sought to make these items public. This idea was entirely consistent with the creation of a public museum, as well as the donation of personal collections to other collections and museums. The entire collection of hats N.D. that belonged to him. Bartram handed it over to the Archaeological Commission of the Kursk Province. Shortly before his death, Nikolai Dmitrievich donated the bulk of his collection to the Toy Museum. He gave the netsuke collection as a souvenir to his daughter Anastasia.
Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram died on July 16, 1931 and was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. And the museum he created is still alive today, but it has long been “removed” away from children in Sergiev Posad near Moscow. It’s good that at least they didn’t close or squander the collections, which are still being preserved and replenished as best they can by new enthusiasts who continue to believe that the slogan “All the best for children” should be valid in our time.
Born into the family of watercolor artist Dmitry Ernestovich Bartram. My father had a small home workshop where Dmitry Ernestovich made toys. Nikolai learned to make and draw at an early age.
He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1889-1891), but returned home due to poor health. There he organized a training workshop for making wooden toys, which he led for 10 years.
He began to study the history of Russian toys, which led him to become acquainted with the works of the historian I. E. Zabelin and the ethnographer V. N. Kharuzina, and then with them themselves.
N.Golivin, Public DomainN. Bartram subsequently began collecting a significantly expanded collection of domestic and foreign toys. Along with toys, he brought belts, antique women's scarves, sundresses, and household items from his trips to the provinces.
In 1900–1903 Bartram traveled through Europe. Having visited almost all toy workshops, bringing suitcases of dolls, soldiers, and toy animals to Russia. Remembering their Moscow apartment in Kalashny Lane, Bartram’s daughter A. N. Izergina writes:
“Wooden, unpolished, geometrically carved furniture from the Semyonov workshop, an ottoman covered with homespun cloth, with cushions made of printed material and Chinese fabric; on the walls there are popular prints: “Babelina - the heroine of Greece”, “How mice buried a cat”, “Ladder of life”, etc.; hanging display case and cabinet with toys: Sergiev, Bogorodsk, Vyatka, Gorodets, German, Japanese and many others. They attracted us children, like everything unusual and fabulous. On a carved hanging shelf stood a large green-blue glazed jug from Skopin, of an unusual shape, with the nose of either a bird or an animal.”
In addition to all this other stuff, Bartram collected netsuke - Japanese figurines, objects of children's life: textbooks, notebooks, children's dishes.
Since 1904, Bartram was an artist of the Moscow provincial zemstvo, head of the art department of the Handicraft Museum (1904–1917). He organized a toy workshop at the museum, where they made dolls with porcelain heads in Russian folk costumes.
Bartram was the first in Russia to come up with the idea of an architectural toy. Having made architectural measurements of historical objects, he created toys “Red Gate”, “Watchtower”, “Sukharev Tower”, “People of the 19th Century”, compositions “Town of the 17th Century”, “Corner of Old Moscow”.
The famous art critic Alexandre Benois wrote in Apollo magazine:
“Now in Moscow they have decided to save the production of folk toys, because, indeed, it is falling, dying out, squeezed by factory cheapness... Bartram, who is at the head of this business, is such a lovely fanatic of the idea, such a hard worker, such a connoisseur, such an artist, he has already managed to do so much , that I can’t help but wish him further success.”
A. N. Izergina recalled:
“You know,” he said, “after all, every toy is a mirror of human life... If all the toys I have are systematized, I can even create an exhibition of a small Museum of Toys from them. This will be great! The kids will come, it will be possible to observe them, and do scientific work!”
In 1918, on the initiative of Bartram, it opened in Moscow. The exhibition was located in Bartram’s four-room apartment on Smolensky Boulevard and was gradually replenished with toys and children’s items from nationalized estates. Bartram managed to collect an impressive collection of children's portraits from the 18th–19th centuries.
N. D. Bartram was appointed chairman of the Union of Decorative Arts and Art Industry Workers (1916–1920), head of the Decorative Arts Commission of the Collegium of the Main Museum of Narkompros. He was a member of the Commission for the Protection of Monuments of Art and Antiquities of the People's Commissariat for Education.
He was elected a full member of the State Academy of Artistic Sciences.
In 1924, the Khrushchev-Seleznev mansion on Prechistenka (now the State Pushkin Museum there) was given to the Toy Museum. According to contemporaries, the museum was second only to the Tretyakov Gallery in terms of attendance. N. Bartram still remained the director. Later the museum was moved to one located near Moscow.