In the years of Andrey Bogolyubsky & Yury Dolgoruky's son in Vladimir and Suzdal Lands some handicraft began to develop and among them there was an icon-painting. Earlier the icons were painted in the nunneries. At the beginning of the 18th century workshops appeared. They united the masters into settlements. This kind of art continued to live at Tartar invasion. At that period there were produced small icons which everybody could take with. Immigrating to those places the people from Vladimir and Suzdal founded Palekh where they had brought their icon painting handicraft.

Surrounded by thick forests Palekh led a secluded life for a long time. There were no nunneries around Palekh so that was the reason of document absence on Palekh.

One local church record says that the village of Palekh initially belonged to princes Paletskies who descended from princes Starodubskies. When they died the village was given to the State. In 1628 it was presented to Ivan Buturlin. The village had 36 peasants yards, 21 poor landless peasant yards & one yard belonged to ancestral land. The Buturlins owned it till 1861.

In 1645 Palekh had the Prophet Elijah church and the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross. Palekh was said to be a large village. In our days we have some documents dated to the 17th. Century. They tell us about icon-painting handicraft in Palekh. Many Palekh family masters, the Korins & the Zubkovs date to the 17th. Century. Mastership was handed down and began to spread around in the nearest towns such as Shuya, Vyasniki, Gorokhovets, Mstyora, Murom, Kholuy. In the middle of the 17th their mastership was heard in Moscow. So Palekh masters were invited to the Tsar Palaces. There is a legend that the tsar icon masters were brought to the Palaces by police officers.

Special people began to sell icons among peasants that led to creation of cheap icons and quick production of them in Shuya and Kholuy situated on sell ways. Palekh masters did not do cheap icons. Because of bad roads Palekh was seldom visited by customers and it influenced on the development of Palekh Art. That is why it had kept old icon-painting traditions.

The village of Palekh stretches out broadly amongst the woods & fields in a truly picturesque corner of the Ivanovo region. In the 15th. Century it was a part of the Vladimir Susdal lands & was one of the first ancient centers of the icon art. In the 17th. & 18th. Centuries Palekh's craftsmen rose to become the most famous in all of icon art. They developed a unique style identifiably distinguished by the fine line tempera drawing saturated with gold of their own. These works were valued for the depth of the images, the subtlety of color placement, their intricate & minute attention to detail as much as for their fairy-tale-like ornamental design.

After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, when the icon business went into the deepest of declines, Palekh masters tried their hands at decorating wooden toys, dishes, kitchen utensils, porcelain & glass. As it turned out, the most interesting way was the painting of paper-mache boxes that became the black-lacquered works of art by such notable artists as E. Golikov, E. Vakurov, A. Kotukhin & E. Bakanov. It was these masters along with some of their fellow villagers established a shop of the ancient art in which a new kind of folk art, Palekh ancient lacquers, was born the in 1924. By the end of 1920`s there was a wide assortment of Palekh art objects.

It is magnificently colorful art of Palekh that has become so very well known worldwide. These elegant black-lacquered art pieces on which the heroes & heroines of Russian folklore come to life; amazing fire-birds, gold-manned troikas, beautiful maidens, & majestic princes subjugate us with a fairy tale-like world of beauty, movement & harmony of their color chords & shades.

Beautiful in proportion, elegant in form, the little jewelry boxes, bead boxes & powder cases beamed with bright colors & sparkled with golden & jewel-like colors decorative patterns. Ordinary things were transformed into objects of art at the hands of these highly talented artists. Battle scenes from Russian epics, traditional hunting scenes, village life scenes & prayers, literary plots & absolute joy of life all were reflected in the art of these highly distinctive artists. Within their art is the very embodiment of the Rus folk culture. There is an inherent passionate feeling of life in all of these works. The art of Palekh miniatures expresses the true national character of the Rus.. Many examples of Palekh art have received recognition at international exhibitions & have become world-known.

One need not be an art expert nor an artist to fully appreciate & enjoy the sheer wonder of the imaginative yet life-like art of Palekh. One need only to like vibrant color, intricate attention to detail & the veritable wonder of seeing a life that once was or was imagined to truly like & enjoy the enrapturing quality of Palekh lacquer art.

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