A fluted bowl made of turned Karelian birch, adorned with wa - Lot 81

A fluted bowl made of turned Karelian birch, adorned with walrus ivory inlays, featuring a fluted spherical lid. Scandinavia, 18th century H. 38 cm (minor damage, one inlay missing from the lid) Birch bowls, particularly those made from Karelian birch, were prized from the late 17th century onward in northern Europe—primarily in Sweden and Norway—for their fine grain, strength, and beautiful speckled texture. It was a material prized by woodturners in these northern regions, who created objects of varying complexity for cabinets of curiosities. The Hermitage thus holds a birch bowl from the woodturning workshop of Peter the Great (1672–1725), dated to the 1710s–1720s, representative of these shaped pieces favored by the European courts of his time (Inv. ЭРТх-2057, fig.).