Design for a child's educational handkerchief showing the Russian pre-revolution alphabet, by Prokhorovskaia Trekhgornia Workshop association, ca. 1903

Design for a child's handkerchief with a decorated border. In the centre is a square showing the pre-revolution Russian alpahabet in both upper and lower case letters. Mounted onto thin card.

The Russian textile firm Prokhorovskaia Trekhgornia Manufaktura was founded in Moscow by Vassily Ivanovich Prokhorov in 1799. By the end of the next century it was one of the leading textile firms in Russia, winning medals at international exhibitions for high quality textiles. The firm employed the finest designers both in Russia and abroad, especially in France. Amongst the Russian designers were A.N.Medvedskiy, L.P.Khrapunov and N.I.Cherepovkiy. The Prokhorovskaia factory was nationalised in 1918 but continued to produce finely designed textiles until 1931-32 when the fundamental archives of the factory were destroyed as not corresponding to the Communist ideology. Shortly afterwards the Company Drawing Shop which had, for many years, been under O.P.Green (Grune) (1874-1931) was also closed.

E.149-1998