Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich, byname Ivan the Terrible, was one of most controversial personages in Russian history. On the one side he repressed every manifestation of heterodoxy with great cruelty, felt suspicious even of his most loyal associates and ordered many executions. On the other side he showed deep concern for his country and completed the creation of the centralized Russian Empire whose territory was enlarged twenty times in his reign, with the Volga region, Siberia and part of the Far East being annexed to it. This statuette of the tsar is a unique piece of the kind, he wears a 16th-century royal attire reproduced in minutest detail. Noteworthy is that all nuances of the texture (velvet, furs and gold-embroidered brocade) are evident. Enamel icons of saints on the tsar's shoulders, pearl embroidery and insets of precious stones are also done most carefully, with exact verisimilitude.

Tin and wood;
casting and hand-painting.
Height 3 1/2 in. (9 cm).