The Demidovs were a dynasty of Russian industrialists, owners of metallurgical plants in the central part of Russia and the Urals, well-known collectors, philanthropists, and patrons of arts in Russia and Europe.

The founder of the family was the Tula blacksmith and gunsmith Nikita Demidovich Antyufeyev. He mastered blacksmithing at an early age and showed a great knack for it. A pupil and an apprentice at first, he quickly became a famous and successful master. In Tula, Nikita built a small plant, which became the first of many metallurgical enterprises he and his descendants founded.

After conducting an examination of Ural iron ore and assessing the prospects for the development of metallurgy in the Urals, Nikita Demidov decided to move to the region, submitting a petition to the tsar. In March 1702, Peter I, who highly valued the master, granted him the newly built Nevyansk plant, with the transfer of which the “mountain kingdom” of the Demidovs in the Urals began. In subsequent years, Nikita Demidov and his eldest son Akinfiy built several more enterprises in the Urals: Shuralinsk, Byngovsk, and Verkhnetagilsk plants. The Nevyansk plant became the center of the mining “department”, the headquarters that the Demidovs used to control the vast region.

In 1720, by decree of Peter I, Nikita Demidovich Antyufeyev was granted personal nobility with the surname Demidov “for faithful service and special diligence and zeal in the production of copper and iron plants.” The noble title was evidence of Peter I’s high appreciation of Demidov’s merits in the development of Russian metallurgy. The Demidovs were assigned to the Nizhny Novgorod nobility, where Nikita Demidov bought “in the Nizhny Novgorod district of the Barminsky volost the village of Fokino with larger and smaller villages…” It should be noted that the acquired lands were barren, the iron ore deposits there were small and quickly exhausted, so it is obvious that the purpose of this purchase was to obtain nobility.

However, the diploma that granted nobility was either not issued or lost. On March 24, 1726, after the death of Peter I and Nikita Demidov, Empress Catherine I granted nobility to Demidov’s sons. The award of the diploma was accompanied by the receipt of a coat of arms. The Empress entrusted the creation of a coat of arms for the new noble family to Heraldry, namely Count Franz Matveyevich Santi, the founder of Russian heraldry.