Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood – interior

Work from the series “Great Cathedrals of Russia.”

Stonecutter Y. Artamonov worked on creating the church’s interior for more than a year. The base for the egg was cut out of white marble, covered on the outside with a silver “shell,” with transparent guilloched enamel and a multitude of finishing details, pearl and diamonds.    Inside, along the marble base, Y. Artamonov mounted mosaics of the church’s ornamentation and iconostasis. Work on the piece required thousands of tiny ornamental and semiprecious stones, shaved down into miniscule squares. Also in the Florentine style of mosaic-making, icons and a depiction of Christ were placed on the dome.

In the center of the church – the bust of Emperor Alexander II, rendered in smoky quartz.

Idea, design and technical supervision – A.G. Ananov

Materials – gold, silver, gold plating, diamonds, pearl, transparent enamel against a guilloched background, mosaic of ornamental and semiprecious stones, jasper, jade, cachalong, carved jasper, etching.

Height: approx. 30 cm

2001

Private collection.