On Easter 1963, Yakov Zargaryan, an Armenian pianist, teacher and art collector, was visited by his neighbor – a neighborhood boy named Nikol, who came to deliver Yakov’s mail and offered him to play a game traditional egg tapping. The 1960s saw the height of the space race, so Nikol painted a rocket ship, with an astronaut in a suit, the sun, the moon and Mount Ararat on his Easter egg using just three colors: black , Red and white.
Despite the ban on celebrating religious holidays in the Soviet Union, egg tapping remained a cultural tradition, especially in countries like Armenia, where Christianity was an important part of national identity.
Zagaryan was so impressed with Nikol’s painting that he asked if he could keep the egg. Although Nikol didn’t give it to him, it was this experience that inspired Zagaryan to start his collection of painted wooden eggs. Six months after Nikol’s visit, Zargaryan ordered a spinning top for his son, Arno. While at the woodturner’s workshop, he saw some wooden eggs and ordered a couple for himself. Remembering Nikol’s painted egg, he asked his artist friends to paint them for him.
“My brother Henrik saw me by chance when I was leaving the studio and suggested that we go to a store to buy some basturma [seasoned, air-dried cured beef]Zargaryan writes in his catalog, published in 2013. However, since the store closed, Zargaryan and his brother decided to visit Martiros Saryan’s nearby house.
Zagaryan gave Saryan a wooden egg and asked him to paint it. According to Zagaryan, this request led to a philosophical conversation with Saryan, during which he asked him to depict life on the egg.
“Then I will paint Armenia. For me, life is Armenia,” replied Sarian. A few days later, the egg was ready.
Zagaryan’s collection, which began with Saryan’s Egg, now includes approximately 1,200 eggs painted by 940 artists from over 100 cities in 52 countries. The eggs were painted by famous Soviet-Armenian artists like Minas Avetisyan, Armine and Harutyun Kalents, Alexander Bazhbeuk-Melikian, Dmitry Nalbandyan and Yervand Kochar, as well as other artists from all over the world – for example, screenwriter and artist of Japanese anime Kazunori Ito and Latvian painter Uldis Zemzaris.
I visited the house of Yasha Papik (grandfather Yasha, in English, as everyone in the neighborhood is called Zargaryan), where his son, Arno, and his grandson, Aram, currently live. There Arno showed me his father’s collection and told me about his father’s life and how the collection came to be.
A museum quality pervades the apartment, which is filled with paintings on the walls, miniature sculptures, and other handmade pieces of glass, clay, and wood. Arno explained that these were mostly donated by his father’s artist friends. Zagaryan designed most of the spaces in the apartment himself to accommodate his collection. He also turned his piano into an office, where he kept his tools and family photos, adding to the artistic vibe of the house.
“My father was a very creative person. He liked to do everything himself; he designed the whole apartment and made it look like a museum or an art gallery. Most of his friends were artists like him. Our apartment was like an art center, they always had a party here,” Arno said.
Yakov Zargaryan was a close friend of the famous Soviet-Armenian painter Minas Avetisyan. Arno told me that his father was proud of this friendship. He played an important role in promoting Minas’ works, and the artist even painted Zagaryan’s portraits and gifted him some paintings. Unfortunately, due to the economic crisis of the 1990s, the family was forced to sell some of these paintings.
Zagaryan meticulously cataloged and organized his collection of eggs, labeling each with the artist’s name and date. The eggs are displayed in chronological order, starting with Saryan’s in the bedroom and progressing through the living room.
The collection mainly includes oil paintings on wooden eggs, although some works are on real eggshells. In addition to mediums such as gouache, tempera, ink, watercolor, felt-tip pens, and ink pens and pencil, several pieces use woodcarving, ceramics, marble, and relief materials. Besides the small eggs, the collection includes about 150 large pieces. Some artists have incorporated screws, nails, cogs, bolts, fabrics, and even silver into their creations.
Zagaryan’s collection has been exhibited twice in Yerevan. For occasions, he designed glass shutters with a unique mechanism that allows the eggs to rotate 360 degrees, providing a full view of them. During a TV report on his collection in 2018, he expressed his dream of opening a museum in Yerevan that would showcase unique art collections in the same vein as his own. He noted Ruben Anghaladyan’s collection of plates painted by famous Armenian artists, as well as other such collectors.
“Today they take the old houses of Yerevan and build hotels and cafes. Armenians will not surprise the world with hotels or cafes, but such a museum can [surprise people]said Zagaryan.
Yakov Zargaryan died in 2020 at the age of 94. Arno Zagaryan told me that he had no intention of selling or giving away his father’s collection, but would consider displaying it in a museum if the opportunity arose. As the collection is housed in a private residence, it cannot be opened to the general public. So far, the family has welcomed many guests to view these unique works of art.
