Russian Tri-Cut Block Doll

8″ Wooden Tri-Cut Block Doll. The doll is wearing a kokoshnick headpiece. ( A kokoshnik is a traditional Russian headdress worn in the northern regions of Russia in the 16th to 19th century.) I purchased the doll in 1973 from the Fordens Galleries, Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio. 

In Dawn Herlocher’s ” 200 Years of Dolls: Second Addition”, she talks about these dolls being made by the peasants of Zagorsk and Bogorodskoye, using wood and a hot iron. Because the doll where cut from a three sided piece of wood they have been referred to as Trihedrals (or triangles).

In the United Federation of Doll Clubs’ “Dolls at 2000” this style of doll is also attributed to the doll makers in Sergiev Posad, which was known as the Toy Capital of Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century.