Anatoly Ivanovich Mamontov, a Moscow publisher, typographer and bookseller, decided to publish a series of exceptionally beautiful fairy tale books by A.S. Pushkin in celebration of his 100th anniversary. He ordered Sergei Ivanovich Malyutin, who by that time was a famous artist and member of the art circle in Abramtsevo, the estate of his brother, Savva Ivanovich Mamontov, to do the artwork for this series.

Art workshops were created in Abramtsevo, where artists, inspired by folk and Old Russian art, created their innovative works: carved wooden furniture, toys, ceramic and majolica products, sculptures, and painted ware. Elena Dmitrievna Polenova played a big role in the workshops’ activities.

In the late 1890s, Sergei Malyutin got deeply interested in the art of the book. We can hardly classify the series of illustrations he created for Pushkin’s “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” as mere illustrations. Malyutin as an artist got involved in developing the entire layout of the book from the cover to the last vignette. He used elements of both typed and handwritten fonts. He mindfully and skilfully designed costumes, created interiors of a fairy-tale palace, filled them with interesting details, drawing inspiration from Russian folklore and folk art. Malyutin created colourful paintings that took up the whole page as well as small elegant miniatures applying the same skill, expressive freedom, and taste.

Sergey Dyagilev wrote about Malyutin’s illustrations, ‘The beauty and novelty of the colour was absolutely seductive; watercolours looked like pieces of some expensive and rare materials’.

Sergei Ivanovich became one of the creators of a new Russian wooden matryoshka doll. He used Japanese wooden dolls as an example; he learnt about them from his wife, S. I. Mamontova, who had travelled to Japan.