ANCIENT FURNITURE OF VELIKY NOVGOROD AS A RESULT OF REATTRIBUTION OF ARTIFACTS OF THE XVI—XVII CENTURIES

Currently, in the process of researching ancient domestic furniture, a separate component of objects similar in design and decor has been identified. The distinctive features of this furniture are frames of horizontal and vertical tetrahedral pillars connected at right angles, and the space between them is filled with rectangular panels with inscribed carved circles. In museum collections, these artifacts were identified in the XVI—XVII centuries without substantiating the judgment put forward or on the basis of the accepted practice of dating according to the memorial component, which currently cannot be considered exhaustive. It coincided with the dates of the owner's life or the construction of the architectural structure where these objects were found, omitting the previous periods of existence and the circumstances of creation. The complex use of visual research and art history analysis methods, applied for the first time to study these objects, allowed to identify the characteristic features of the constructive and decorative solutions, the degree of preservation and wear, repair and restoration interventions, to consider monuments in the context of the development of Russian and European style art, to justify the possibility of their creation in an earlier period, to find dated analogues from the region architecture, medieval tombstones, the results of archaeological excavations of Veliky Novgorod, furniture art of Europe. The totality of the results obtained made it possible to change the original attribution of monuments and designate it as the work of Novgorod masters of the late XIII — early XV centuries, which is not only a special case in the practice of research, but changes the accepted scientific concept of museum collections and Russian furniture art. The proposed systematic approach proves the fallacy of the thesis about the complete loss of ancient cultural heritage, about the conservatism of Russian art, which preserved pre—Mongolian traditions in the sphere of furniture creation up to the XVI—XVII centuries.