Handicraft workshop of the Shenkur Holy Trinity maiden monastery of the 18th century

The article is devoted to previously unknown works of pictorial embroidery of the synodal period. The artworks represent the local cultural center of the Russian North and are published for the first time. In the first half and the middle of the 18th century, a unique gold-embroidery workshop, which reached a high artistic level, was formed in the Shenkur Holy Trinity Convent on the Vaga river. The creation of liturgical fabrics in the monastery was carried out not only by nuns, but also by so-called “belitsy”, women who lived in monastic cells without being tonsured, as well as residents of the city of Shenkursk. Mother Superior Euphemia (1727- 1749) and her sister Xenia were famous craftswomen, they embroidered on multi-colored fabrics with gold, silver and silk threads. Shrouds of Christ, intercessions of the Holy Virgin and epigonations made in the Shenkur Monastery are featured in several museum collections, mainly in the North. The handicraft workshop existed in the monastery for only a short period of time: from the beginning of the 18th century until the closing of the monastery in 1764. The Vaga craftswomen created their works on the basis of the ancient Russian gold embroidery tradition. The identification and attribution of liturgical fabrics enabled one to uncover distinctive features of Shenkur products: idiosyncratic technologies, rare iconography and peculiar style dating back to the art of the Baroque era. Liturgical clothing and epigonations made by the Vaga craftswomen were ordered and purchased for the bishops' councils of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory, they are present in the collections of Nikolo-Korelsky, Antoniev-Siya and Solovetsky monasteries. Correspondingly, Shenkur church textiles and fabrics were used in the churches of the Vologda diocese. The article offers an unprecedented systematization of a completely new unexplored layer of museum objects. A number of conclusions are drawn on account of unknown written and visual sources found in museums and archives of the country. The second half of the nineteenth century saw the revival of women's handicraft in the Shenkursky Monastery. The article is illustrated by works found in the museum collections of the Arkhangelsk region, primarily the Arkhangelsk Museum of Local Lore. The scope of the study includes a completely new significant range of cultural monuments belonging to North Russian tradition. The results can be widely used in identifying and attributing works of pictorial embroidery.