“The Mistress of the Copper Mountain” is the largest sculpture in the collection of the Museum of Stone-Cutting and Jewelry Art History. Its height is 134 centimeters. It was made of blocks and plates of selenite (a soft mineral, a variety of gypsum which is mined in the Urals).

That is why artists and sculptors who dedicated their works to her image are not limited by malachite and green colors. Yury Nelyubin’s students chose yellowish-beige selenite. Its soft shine resembles the iridescence of silk.

Ural stonecutters began working with selenite in the middle of the 19th century. This stone could be easily cut, carve and ground. However, it was fragile, thus masters had to be extremely careful. The finished item could split from any impact, and the surface was easily scratched with a nail. Due to these properties, selenite was sometimes replaced by another, more durable kind of gypsum, soapstone.

Artists-stonecutters used selenite for compositions of fruits and berries. It was combined with jasper, serpentine, carnelian, rhodonite and other colored minerals. Similar compositions decorated paperweights, casket lids, and other products.

An artist and teacher, Yury Nelyubin designed the sculpture “The Mistress of the Copper Mountain”, while students of the Kungur Stone-Cutting Vocational School No. 58 made it. Presently, it is the Kungur State College of Industrial Applied Arts, a branch of the Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts.