This walrus ivory box and games counters, made in Russia (Archangel) in ca. 1830, has slanting sides and panels, while the cover is pierced with festoons of flowers and leaves on a network ground. Russia has a long tradition of ivory carving, going back to at least the twelfth century. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Moscow and the Russian Court were important centres of artistic patronage, which included commissioning works in ivory. The few Russian ivories in the V&A collection are dominated by those from Cholmogory, near Archangel, in North East Russia. Here a tradition of making decorative objects in walrus ivory, such as caskets and jewellery, grew up in the nineteenth century.