An inkwell in the shape of a bear’s head, used by V.I. Lenin and N.K. Krupskaya in Switzerland in the last years of emigration until April 1917.
Western Europe, Switzerland. 1910s.
Not later than 1917.
Oak, iron, glass
9x17x10.5 cm

After returning to Russia from emigration in April 1917, N.K. Krupskaya presented the inkwell to the 11-year-old pupil of A.I. Ulyanova-Elizarova and M.T. Elizarov Georgy (Yakovlevich) Lozgachev – Elizarov, who kept it at home. On January 6, 1956, he handed it over to the Central Museum of V.I. Lenin with the following explanatory note: After returning to Russia from emigration … Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya presented me two or three (I don’t remember exactly) albums in the form of ordinary notebooks for drawing, filled with her own drawings, a school or student notebook on natural history, a children’s book in Russian and Polish about a girl Yadze (Nade) of antique edition, and an inkwell carved of wood with carved letters Jenewe (Geneva). Notebooks and a booklet, a brochure “18 Brumaire” with notes by V.I. Lenin and a sheet with Ilyich’s autographs I handed over to the Lenin Institute through Vl. Sorin, but I still had the inkwell. The inkwell is an elaborately carved wooden bear head with eyes, made of glass, the bear rests with its paws on a wooden board-stand. The head leans back on a loop, a simple tin inkwell is inside … I washed the inkwell a little, slightly tinted it, glued the cracked stand and covered it with varnish for safety.”
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