Bidspirit auction | Nikolai Ivanovich Golikov (1924–2011)

Nikolai Ivanovich Golikov (1924–2011) - Design Plaque “The Little Humpbacked Horse”. Palekh, USSR, 1980. Papier-mâché, egg tempera, gold highlights, lacquer. 19 by 30 cm. Condition report: Well preserved. Minor surface wear and light traces of age consistent with use. Provenance: From the Golikov family collection (Palekh). Created and preserved within the artist’s personal archive. This decorative composition inspired by Pyotr Yershov’s famous fairy tale The Little Humpbacked Horse occupies a notable place among Nikolai Golikov’s Palekh works of the 1980s. At the center of the scene appears the magical maiden emerging from the boiling cauldron before the astonished Tsar and Ivan. The artist masterfully combines several narrative episodes within a unified pictorial space, a hallmark of traditional Palekh miniature painting. The work reflects the mature style of Nikolai Ivanovich Golikov through the fusion of Old Russian decorative aesthetics and theatricality, multi-scene narrative construction, icon-inspired elongation of figures, musical linear rhythms, intricate graphic detailing, emotionally charged colour harmonies. Particularly striking is the architectural background featuring a fantastical white city that evokes both ancient Russian architecture and a visionary fairy-tale realm. The composition is permeated by a sense of festivity and magical transformation - central themes of the Palekh artistic tradition. Collecting & Investment Potential: Nikolai Ivanovich Golikov is recognized as one of the major Palekh masters of the twentieth century, whose works are preserved in leading Russian museum collections. Golikov’s preparatory plaques and authorial design works are highly valued among collectors of Russian lacquer art because they reveal the artist’s creative process and his development of larger decorative compositions.  Golikov’s works of the 1980s are regarded as one of the most harmonious phases of his artistic career, when he achieved a mature synthesis of fairy-tale narrative and refined decorative sophistication. The Little Humpbacked Horse is a vivid and poetic work by Nikolai Golikov in which the traditions of Palekh lacquer miniature painting find brilliant expression through the language of Russian folklore and fantasy.