Maximilian Art Foundation
Founded in 2006 by Maxim and Denis Artsinovich, the Maximilian Art Foundation is dedicated to the preservation and advancement of Russian gemstone carving — a refined and highly specialised art.
Gemstone carving remains a narrow field, hindered by a scarcity of dedicated institutions, exhibitions, expert curators and art dealers. In the absence of robust infrastructure to support it, the Foundation has taken this vital mission upon itself. Without its efforts, this unique form of artistic expression would have remained virtually unknown, both in Russia and internationally.
Today the Foundation’s permanent collection includes around 60 exemplary works by some of the most talented and forward-thinking artists from Saint Petersburg, Irkutsk, Idar-Oberstein and Nizhny Tagil — among them Evgeny Morozov, Gennady Pylin, Sergey Chestunin, Sergey Falkin, Eduard Vinogradov, Vladimir Putrin, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Gerd Dreher, Anton Ananyev, Maksim Morozov and Alexey Kuznetsov.
From 2008 to 2024 the Foundation has donated and offered for charity auction more than 75 exceptional pieces by leading contemporary lapidary artists, and has published three seminal volumes dedicated to the field.
Publications
- Artsinovich M., Artsinovich D., Lopatom M. — Post-Fabergé 2020. St. Petersburg, Artindex, 2020. ISBN 978-5-903733-79-8
- Artsinovich M., Lomato M. — Post-Fabergé. St. Petersburg, Artindex, 2015. ISBN 978-5-903733-38-5
- Artsinovich M. — The Petersburg Style in Gemstone Carving. St. Petersburg, Artindex, 2013. ISBN 978-5-903733-26-2
Works held by
The Moscow Kremlin Museums · The State Hermitage Museum · MMOMA · Gokhran of Russia · Fersman Mineralogical Museum · All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art · Museum of the History of Stone Carving and Jewellery Art (Yekaterinburg) · GIA (California, USA) · Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris).
