after a 1919 design by Natalia Danko, a woman wearing a vividly colored shawl seated on an outcropping of rocks sews a red banner, one of the first symbols of the early Soviet state, the banner's Cyrillic inscription "The Urge to Destroy is also an Urge to Create," a slogan from Mikhail Bakunin, partially visible, as well as "Petersburg Committee R.K.P. (Bolsheviks)," the left edge of the banner with the hammer and sickle above a gilt sun within ciselé oak leaf wreaths, the interior with dark green factory mark and I. Mikhailov 1921g. (Cyrillic) in black, the Cyrillic letters HD (Natalia Danko) and 1920 incised in paste at the reverse near base 

unusually complex painting and gilding, the sculpture very attractive and in very good condition, some minute area of glaze loss to tips of fingers on one hand (visible under blacklight), the interior coated with a slightly yellowed plaster, perhaps to stabilize the form. A hairline crack is visible to the glaze surface on the corner of the banner, bisecting the sickle.
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Danko's 1919 design is among the best known of her series of genre figures of the newly visible people of the young Soviet state. This sculpture is of particular interest because of the unusually rich and detailed painted decoration. On the majority of examples in museum and private collections, the woman sews the slogan "Long Live Soviet Power"; this example with a quote from Bakunin, familiar from Lenin’s Plan for Monumental Propaganda, seems to be unique. Equally unusual is the detailed treatment of the rising sun within a ciselé gilt wreath and the rich decoration on her yellow shawl. For comparison, see V. Levshenkov, Tvorchestvo Sester Danko, St. Petersburg, 2012, pp. 115-116 and T. Nosovich, I. Popova, Gosudarstvennyi farforovyi zavod, 1904-1944, St. Petersburg, 2005, pp. 342-343.