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Elena Polenova, sister of the landscape artist Vasily Polenov, was a leading figure in the Russian craft revival, which began at the estate of Abramtsevo, just north of Moscow, in the 1890s. She took traditional folk patterns and developed them into fashionable designs for handmade wooden furniture which was produced by rural people and sold in Moscow boutiques. She was also a talented watercolourist, textile designer and illustrator of children's fairy-tales. She died in 1898 aged 48 of a brain tumour. Dr Louise Hardiman is an art historian and specialist in Russian art, design and culture, as well as the international Arts and Crafts movement.
