This Dark-Cherry Shawl

The display of such articles is always topical and popular because the tradition of their manufacture and use goes back to ancient days.

The exhibited kerchiefs and shawls were made in different techniques (embroidery, weaving, printing) and using different materials (wool, silk, brocade, cotton). Tambour for embroidery and printing boards supplemented the display. They allowed the visitors to see the whole variety of decoration techniques of the exhibited articles.

The collection of kerchiefs and shawls of the Museum-Reserve “Rostov Kremlin” began to form right after the opening of the Rostov museum in 1883 (it was the Museum of Church Antiquities at that time). Samples of expensive kerchiefs and shawls were mentioned in the lists of received items. They were intentionally bought from the population and traders. Some of them were donated. For instance, the woollen shawl with a printed floral pattern made with aniline dyes was presented by Joseph, Bishop of Uglich, in 1911. The museum received a part of shawls which had been used as veils and covers for church vessels in the 1920s after the closing of churches. On the whole, the collection has been formed from the late 19^th to the 20^th centuries and consists of about 250 items. They are made of wool, silk, cotton and linen and date back to the 18^th – first half of the 20^th centuries. A considerable part of them was manufactured in the handweaving technique, the rest – using machines. Some kerchiefs have stamps of the factories of Guchkov, Gyubner, Prokhorov, the Danilov manufactory, and also stamps of unknown manufactories: “M: M. A:R.”, “I.A.” and “LN, K.S.M.”. All articles are decorated with pattern weaving, printing, embroidery, or their pattern is made using bobbins.

The collection of folk fabrics of the Kirillo-Belozersky museum-reserve contains over 100 kerchiefs and shawls dating back to the 19^th – early 20^th centuries. It started to form in the 1920-1930s. Some exhibits were also brought from the closed churches and monasteries of the Belozersk district where kerchiefs were used to decorate church interiors, as altar-cloths and lectern covers. Many of them still have sewn crosses in the middle or traces of them. Thanks to numerous expeditions of museum employees in the Vologda and the Archangelsk regions, the collection was replenished with plenty of interesting samples preserved by village dwellers. Almost half of the kerchiefs and shawls from the collection of the Kirillo-Belozersky Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve are silk articles: thin of pastel shades and multi-coloured of repp weave. Some items are multi-coloured cotton kerchiefs which were popular with the peasants. These kerchiefs were bought during expeditions of museum employees to the villages of the Vologda region. Articles with printed stamps are of great value. They make it possible to establish the place and sometimes the date of their manufacture (the red calico kerchief with the printed stamp “Association of manufactories of the Baranovs”; the kerchief made at the manufactory of Nikita Tikhonovich Smirnov; the cotton kerchief with the stamp “Shlisselburg manufactory”).