Nikolai Bartram

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Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram (1873–1931) was a Russian illustrator, poster designer, art historian, and collector.

Early life and training
His father, Dmitri Ernestovich Bartram, was a watercolor artist who ran a small toy workshop. Nikolai learned to paint and draw from a young age. At sixteen he began studying at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but had to quit after two years due to ill health. He then organized a workshop making wooden toys for ten years and studied the history of toys in Russia. He was influenced by the historian Ivan Zabelin and by the ethnographer Vera Kharuzina, and he began collecting toys.

Career and legacy
From 1900 to 1903 Bartram traveled across Europe, visiting toy shops and returning with suitcases of dolls, toy soldiers, and toy animals. He also illustrated several old Russian folktales. In 1904 he became an artist for the Moscow Zemstvo and headed the art department of the Museum of Handicrafts, where he organized a workshop that produced dolls with porcelain heads and the first “architectural toys” in Russia, based on historic buildings.

Marriage and the Moscow Toy Museum
In 1912 he married the artist and collector Yevdokia Loseva, who joined him in his projects. In October 1918, during the later years of World War I, they founded the Moscow Toy Museum. It was not opened to the public until 1921. After a move in 1924, Bartram remained its Director until his death. Shortly after his death, the museum was moved to Zagorsk (Sergiev Posad); in 1980 it moved again to its current location in Sergiyev Posad.

Public service and recognition
Bartram held several prominent roles. In 1916 he was named Chairman of the Union of Decorative Arts and Art Industry Workers. He later led the Decorative Arts Commission at the People’s Commissariat for Education and served on the Commission for the Protection of Monuments of Art and Antiquity. He was elected to the State Academy of Artistic Sciences.

Death and burial
Bartram died in Moscow in 1931 at the age of 57 and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery. The Moscow Toy Museum moved to Zagorsk after his death and later relocated to Sergiyev Posad.