The chest ‘In the Museum’ was created by Alexey Korchagin, an artist from the village of Fedoskino. He was born in 1960 in the village of Temirtau, Kemerovo Oblast. In 1982, he graduated from the Fedoskino Art and Industrial School of Miniature Painting and became one of the few masters who work on reviving the techniques of traditional Lukutin lacquer art.

The artist masterfully used the entire surface of the item to paint on, uniting separate scenes into one cohesive composition. An ironic story about a museum and its visitors unfolds on the edges of the chest.

On one of its sides, the artist captured two bearded men who approach a cashier for tickets — a woman with a bun on her head and a brooch on the neck of her blouse. In this image, the master depicted how visitors perceive a typical museum employee.

A young mother walks along one of the halls: she pulls her son, who holds a lollipop in the form of a cockerel in his hand. The boy constantly looks back at something he finds curious, but at the same time remains indifferent to the sculpture ‘A Girl with a Paddle’, which symbolizes another common cliché about how a ‘classical sculpture’ should look like.

The next scene organically continues the previous one: a museum staffer on a chair watches the mother and son with interest. The woman stares at them so intently that she even stops reading her book. Two men stand to the right of her near a painting in an oval frame. One of them holds a pen and a piece of paper, he clearly notes something down. Most likely, Alexey Korchagin captured art experts — regular visitors of the museum.

The next composition shows a girl resting on a bench. While she applies her lipstick, a young man thoughtfully gazes at her.

The master painted a portrait of a woman on the lid of the chest. A man and a woman stand nearby: she points to a painting, while he holds a camera attached to his belt. To the right of them, a middle-aged man dozes off on a chair: in this image one can recognize the artist himself, the author of the miniature. He depicted a self-portrait on the miniature, capturing himself in front of a painting.