The talented icon painter and miniaturist Yevgeny Vasilyevich Yurin (1898–1983) was born in Mstyora into a family of icon painters. He studied at the Mstyora Icon Painting School (1909–1913) and worked in local icon painting workshops.

Yevgeny Yurin was an active member in the association “Artel of Ancient Russian Painting”, which united prominent miniaturists and icon painters, and became one of the organizers of the artel “Proletarian Art”. Yurin perfectly mastered the technique of miniature painting on papier-mâché, participated in many art exhibitions and joined the Artists’ Union of the USSR in 1940.

Yevgeny Yurin is known as an ornamentalist: from 1936 he worked exclusively in the field of ornamental painting. He created a unique ornamental technique that amazes with its beauty, proportionality, balance and at the same time simplicity, harmony of lines and skillful selection of colors. The technique of painting in gold perfectly combines with the black background of the lacquer box and gives the artist ample opportunities to use the black background as part of the color palette.

In 1943, Mstyora painters began to create new works dedicated to the events of the Great Patriotic War and the exploits of the Soviet people. Like many Mstyora artists, Yevgeny Yurin turned to these topics as well. In his artistic legacy, one can particularly spotlight a number of compositions in which various state and national symbols are included in the ornament. Those can be rosettes and emblems, orders and medals, coats of arms and banners, the Spasskaya Tower and the ear of wheat.

In the center of the presented composition, Yevgeny Yurin depicted the Order of Victory, the highest military order of the USSR, which was awarded to particularly distinguished military officers. The artist accurately conveyed the appearance of the badge of the order — it is a pentangular star on a golden-brown background surrounded by a double strip of continuous ornament. A circle covered with blue enamel is inscribed in the center of the star, with an image of the Kremlin wall with Lenin’s Mausoleum and the Spasskaya Tower in the center. At the bottom of the circle, on a red ribbon, there is an inscription in white enamel “VICTORY”.