The “Golden Ring” tray was created by Nelli Nikolayevna Koshkina who specializes in lacquer painting on metal. In this composition, she depicted small bouquets of wildflowers and berries. She included wild pansies, daisies, buttercups, strawberries, and lingonberries. For this tray, the artist used a quick single-layer painting technique with two-color brushstrokes, which she has brought to perfection over forty years of experience in tray painting.
In her tray compositions, Nelli Koshkina often included stylized images of Ural forest berries. Particularly beautiful are her small lingonberry bouquets. In her trays, the berry is easily identifiable as it is depicted in a true-to-life manner despite the stylized and decorative nature of such images typical of the Nizhny Tagil tray painting.
With a series of elegant, small brushstrokes, the talented craftswoman from Nizhny Tagil achieved smooth color transitions when depicting bunches of berries. The color palette of such trays usually does not have many contrasting colors. Nelli Koshkina prefers more harmonious color combinations. This tray is characterized by a distinct style typical of Nelli Koshkina. The berries are painted in bunches close to each other, with little of the background visible behind the bouquet.
Nelli Koshkina’s career began during the revival of the Nizhny Tagil lacquer painting on metal in the 1970s and 1980s. After graduating from high school in 1973, she became an apprentice at the tray painting workshop of the Emalposuda (Enamelware) factory. Her mentors were the masters of the Nizhny Tagil tray painting, Agrippina Vasilyevna Afanasyeva and Alevtina Nikolayevna Golubeva.
Three years later, Nelli Koshkina enrolled at the School of Art and Graphics of the Nizhny Tagil State Pedagogical Institute. She graduated in 1980. In 1983, she returned to the Emalposuda factory and joined the creative team of the tray painting workshop where she designed new floral, fruit, and berry compositions.
In 1989, Nelli Koshkina started participating in various exhibitions. She regularly displayed her trays at exhibitions in Nizhny Tagil and Yekaterinburg and also brought them to other cities, including Novokuznetsk, Rezh, Serov, and Krasnoufimsk.
