The Visual Materials Fund (now the Visual Materials Sector of the Printed Sources and Fine Arts Department) was established in 1994 and is now a unique collection of original paintings and drawings. The collection consists of more than 8,000 items. The main part of the collection consists of sketches by famous masters of various kinds of decorative-applied art, including contemporary artists. Time frames of the materials kept in the collection cover the first half of the XIX century up to the present day.


The pride of the collection are the sketches of porcelain items by the artists V.G.Vorobyevsky (1920s), I.I.Riznich (1920s-1930s), V.M.Gorodetsky, B.E.Kalita, A.A.Chekulina, T.Z.Podryabinnikov (1920s-1960s) and others. Sketches of glass forms are represented by watercolor works of B.A. Smirnov (1960s-1980s) and V.E. Kowalski (1920s-1970s). The section devoted to the works of textile artists and fashion designers includes sketches of such great masters of the XXth century as A.G.Koltsova-Bychkova, L.Ya.Raitser, V.D.Lotonina, N.P.Ozernaya, N.V.Kirsanova, T.B.Chachkhiani, N.A.Golikova, G.N.Gagarina, L.G.Telegina. Carefully preserved are the albums of the masters of the Fedoskino lacquer miniatures of the second half of the XIXth - the early XXth centuries, the "Palekh Album" with the sketches of the outstanding artists of the craft of 1935-1945, such as N.M.Zinoviev, P.D.Bazhenov, I.P.Vakurov and others. The collection contains working sketches of modern artists of Mstera lacquer miniature. It was a real success to recieve from the Voronov family a collection of cigarette packets and matchboxes - a unique collection of industrial graphics, starting from the 1920s up to the 1960s.

Of particular importance is the most valuable collection of original graphics (over 600 items), transferred to the museum's collection from the library of the Museum of Folk Art in 2008 - 2018 (as part of the Art Industry Research Institute). Most of these materials were formed during the period of the Moscow provincial zemstvo Artisanal Museum and in the first decades of Soviet power. Among them are the drawings of furniture samples and items of decorative art for the Artisanal Museum, made by V.M. Vasnetsov, A.M. Vasnetsov, S.V. Malyutin, N.D. Bartram, B.N. Lange, V.A. Vatagin, K.P. Prussov, E.G. Telyakovsky, A.A. Suvorov, Z.D. Kashkarova and other authors, whose works have influenced the development of the country's art.

Of special interest are the drawings by K.A.Korovin, A.Ya.Golovin, I.E.Bondarenko, and other artists, related to the decoration and arrangement of the Russian pavilions at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900.

Recently the collection has been enriched by watercolor drawings of floral compositions by M.V.Vasilyev and K.T.Mankov, famous artists and teachers of the Stroganov Art School. Their creative and teaching activities to a large extent laid the foundation for the creation of original teaching methods for the training of industrial painters in the middle and second half of the 19th century.

The collection of visual materials of the museum provides an opportunity to study the creative heritage of significant artists of decorative and applied arts, famous masters of folk crafts and has a great potential for exposition, exhibition, publishing and scientific activities of the museum.