The pencil box on display belonged to the family of Mikhail Chekhov, the writer’s younger brother. His son and grandson were both artists. Sergey Mikhailovich Chekhov, the writer’s nephew, graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts, worked as a scenic designer, and was a head lecturer at the Stage Production Department of the Moscow Art Theater School.
Sergey Chekhov researched the biography of his famous uncle and kept the family archives. He designed over 130 books, including “The Genealogy of Anton Chekhov”, “Through the Chekhov’s Places of the Moscow Region”, and “Melikhovo”. He also planned to provide illustrations for a new edition of “Sakhalin Island”, but this plan never came to fruition.
His son, Sergey Sergeyevich, enjoyed painting watercolors and drawing with colored pencils under his father’s guidance since he was a child. He graduated from the Moscow Art School and later from the Department of Monumental Art at the Surikov Institute. As his graduation project, he created a mosaic on the building of the Moscow Library Institute. Sergey Sergeyevich Chekhov worked in the techniques of linocut and etching but became particularly famous as a muralist.
The “Peacock” colored pencil box was donated to the museum by Valentina Chekhova, the widow of Sergey Mikhailovich Chekhov. It was one of the first exhibits in the collection of the Museum of Anton Chekhov’s Book “Sakhalin Island”.
The box was made at the Sacco and Vanzetti Factory of Writing Accessories in Moscow. Inside the box, there are three hex pencils, including two lead pencils and one colored pencil, from different sets produced by Saxonia, Koh-I-Noor, and Sacco and Vanzetti.
The pencil factory was named after two Italian workers’ rights activists. Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco moved to the United States as teenagers. Sacco was a shoemaker, and Vanzetti was a bakery assistant and a quarry laborer. Their names are associated with the anarchist movement and the struggle against police brutality. During the period of political rallies, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested on charges of robbery and murder and executed in the electric chair.
The case of the unjustly convicted workers drew worldwide attention, with even the Pope and Albert Einstein asking for a retrial. Strikes and rallies were organized in many cities. Before death, Sacco and Vanzetti wrote a letter thanking the proletariat and urging workers to remain united in the fight for their cause. The Soviet Union actively supported Sacco and Vanzetti, publishing their biographies in Russian, and naming plants, factories, streets, and steamships after them.
