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# "English iron is vile, but having the means to make it cheaper, they undercut us everywhere" - in 1818 the industrialist Nikolay Nikitich Demidov complains of cheap English iron, which had shaken the international standing of a trade that was, admittedly,
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/u-anglichan-zhelezo-merzkoe-no-oni-imeia-sposob-delat-onoe-deshevle-vsiudu-delaiut-nam-podryv-v-1818-godu-promyshlennik-nikolai-nikitich-demidov-zhaluetsia-na-deshevoe-angliiskoe-zhelez/
- Published: 2023-08-13T11:05:10.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:36:03.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Museums, Ethnography

Yet this very thing became one of the reasons for the intensive development of the iron trades.

Do you have a handsome painted lacquer tray at home? Such ware was once an indispensable and costly part of any interior. Russian decorative iron trays, salt cellars, caskets and chests replaced artistic work in copper at the end of the 18th century.

In the middle of the 18th century copper ware stood at the summit of ornamentation and form, represented by old-fashioned yendovas, caskets, mortars, bratinas, trays and platters, covered with a delicate floral pattern of incredible beauty. Gradually it came to be supplanted by iron ware, more convenient, more durable and adorned with highly artistic painting.

The impetus for the growth of such production in the Urals was competition on the world iron market. Russia began to sell less iron abroad, while Russian craftsmen began to buy more of their own iron at more affordable prices, and ever more lacquering workshops appeared, buying their raw material in the works' shops.

Within a few decades the production of lacquered iron ware had achieved enormous success. Various traditions, schools of painting and distinctive forms emerged.

One of the most famous families of producers of decorative lacquer ware were the Khudoyarovs, who served the Demidovs personally and sold their work throughout Russia. Today their chests, caskets and trays are of great value. The Khudoyarovs not only introduced new kinds of goods and new forms, but also devised schemes of painting and made technological innovations: the secret of the Khudoyarov transparent lacquer of astonishing quality, about which Bazhov has a tale, has not been uncovered to this day. And their works are kept in the principal museums as exemplars of a craft that became one of the symbols of Russia