No it is not a joke. There are people that don't want to or cannot register just read the insert
Zolotnik is giving the reader a show-case of salt thrones, and his advise — to avoid fakes - is
2) is the quality as it should be, are the details correct?
And not giving the reader any guidance of what to look for? His advice is maybe in some sense relevant, but far from sufficient for the subject he raises. He leaves the reader in ignorance, in the darkness.
The quality and details — the full appearance - are to be sought and understood in the overall salt chair tradition of central Russia. The single two traditional salt chairs Zolotnik shows have a common square-box wooden prototype, picked up by Sazikow for a silver variety in Moscow in mid-1900 century.
Courtesy Sergiev Posad State Museum, Moskovskaya oblast
The shown bulldog-squared salt thrones, with rectangular back or pentagonal, with bended upper side, have all saw-teeth sides on back and lid, often with trompe d’oeil horizontal wood withe-bended box. This style have then been copied/refined by Ikonnokov, Kazakov, Svesnikov, Semjonov and others, all in Moscow. Ovchinnikow and Khlebnikov, the giants and the standardizers followed the style and the market trend, and went enamelling.
The original silver ones are heavy compared to size, and on the back often a circular symbol (a sun). Sometimes pierced with 4 windows, sometimes as presentation gifts to married couple, a cockerel (fertility symbol), at the back or, not to be that expressive, inside the lid. This style became the trendsetter of salt thrones, and created the cloisonné enamelling fashion, far from the purer silver interpretation of the salt throne tradition.
What Zolotnik show-cases are leaving behind is the overall, and in details, more interesting tradition from Kostroma, represented by silversmiths as Manilov and Blochin. No bulldog boxes were made there. Lighter, higher back, always pierced, using traditional pagan or floral ornaments. The symbols were the pierced sun (good harvest), horses (wealth), sirins (mythological birds with female head), pierced cockerels, pierced saw-teeth and plow-tip ornaments. Thinner silver, no casting.
One ornamental expression from the traditional peasant life to be significant to salt throne backs was the gable of a traditional wooden Russian cottage, izba. The roof angle supported of the pagan symbols was refined by the Moscow traditional style silversmiths, Baladanova, Goloschakov, Fuld and Ryndin, and exploited by Kazakov, Ovchinnikov and others. Maybe this is all details, but isn’t it that we are advised to look for?
What is all this aiming at? Maybe to say that Russian salt thrones are of a little wider range of silver art than Zolotnik has showed us, and scrutinizing quality and details gain of an understanding of the spectrum, and a little of art history in this context. When Zolotnik says that the wolf is around the corner — fakes - he means enamel. Anyone is probably welcomed give advice to the readers to be more observant, - but also to explain why, and most important, give the reasons, give constructive information and not mix up pure silverware with enamelled.
Then, technical details, - how about that? Most of what we see of the silversmiths mentioned, and most of the others, is engraved and chased by high quality artisans, all sides, often floral or on the lid using Greece/roman classic patterns, salt thrones are not ordinary salt cellars, engraved by apprentices. The back of the back is not left to be only a backside. It is also chased.
Salt thrones were most often for give-away, with engraved dedications or proverbs, maybe not meant to be for daily use as salt cellars, but as a memory. Anyhow, they are always gold washed inside for the box to stand the salt, if only small remains of gold, they have been used.
But maybe Zolotnik is not talking or salt thrones, but enamelled items in general, and his favourite subject, fakes?? If so, why not examine enamelling and give advice on the real stuff, and touch on the fakes, if necessary, point out the differences, and use the giant photo archive mainly copied from Internet? Why is Zolotnik talking of salt thrones, when he is addressing cloisonné fakes in general and not of genuine Russian silver salt thrones? And why publish, and present, some nonsense advises not asked for, and no reasons for, on a specific narrow branch of Russian silver, if aiming to send out the constant warning over enamel?
This contribution to the forum on salt throne science is aimed to fill some gaps, earlier left wide-open.
There is probably a common view among readers that the Silver forum stays open for also a Russian silver dialogue with a wide participation, more voices, less nonsense, less fakeism.
