This is a rare set of five hand-painted and hand crafted Matryoshka nested dolls.from Ukraine.

• This set includes 5 handcrafted and hand painted dolls.
• Black w/ Pink and White Flowers. Made from Real Linden Wood. Non Toxic.
• The Size of the Biggest Doll Is 5 - 5.5 Inches Tall.

HISTORY: Matryoshkas date from 1890. The story goes that Sergei Maliutin, a painter from a folk crafts workshop in the Abramtsevo estate of a famous Slavic industrialist and patron of arts Savva Mamontov, saw a set of Japanese wooden dolls representing Shichi-fuku-jin, the Seven Gods of Fortune. Inspired, Maliutin drew a sketch of a Slavic version of the toy. It was carved by Vasiliy Zvezdochkin in a toy workshop in Sergiyev Posad and painted by Sergei Maliutin. It consisted of eight dolls; the outermost was a girl in an apron, then the dolls alternated between boy and girl, with the innermost ? a baby. In 1900, M.A. Mamontova, the wife of Savva Mamontov, presented the dolls at the World Exhibition in Paris and the toy earned a bronze medal.