Milkmaid

Country: Ukraine

Manufactory: Baranovka

Date of establishment: 1980s

Sculptor: Vasily Prisyazhnyuk

Size (cm): 28*25

Porcelain Story

The old-timers of the Kyiv club of collectors know well this modest, middle-aged man. For decades in a row, every Saturday at any time of the year, he appears at an ordinary meeting or at an unusual gathering of collectors. He carefully arranges his porcelain figurines and begins to communicate for a long time with people who are keen on finding their favorite figurines. He is often approached for advice by highly experienced experts who are unable to find out the origin of a particular work.

Basically, Vasily (Vasya, Uncle Vasya) specializes in Soviet porcelain. Including in Ukrainian, of course. In Soviet times, there were more than ten well-known porcelain enterprises in Ukraine that produced products that were in great demand both in the Union and far beyond its borders. Figurines of Ukrainian masters were collected by millions of lovers of mass art. Yes, sometimes these works were unpretentious in plot and very rustic in execution. But they had a special charm - they were always sweet, funny, attractive in their own way for those who somehow wanted to decorate the gray socialist life.

Now all this is in the past. There are no former productions, there is no former variety of figurines and compositions produced, among which, by the way, highly artistic works of the museum level were often found. Now the destiny of novice collectors of Soviet and Ukrainian porcelain is the search for high-quality copies (which happens extremely rarely) or original samples of mass production that have soared in unthinkable prices in some places.

Previously, Vasya could find literally everything. Today, quality products of the past are a rarity. Only organized Roma families who come to Kyiv from Western Ukraine are engaged in searching for and supplying them to the capital's antique market. Although sometimes our Vasya has something. By the way, not many people know that he had a chance to work at various Ukrainian porcelain factories and learn all the intricacies of this difficult craft. And very few people have seen the original works of Vasily Prisyazhnyuk, created by him personally while working in Baranovka. One of these works is in front of you today. Made in the spirit of socialist realism, it seemed to capture a slice of that time, forever left in the past. But doesn't this naive art arouse interest now?