We sell the world’s only remaining stock of antique bohemian print blocks!
Traditional is a small shop in the center of Prague selling one of the few remaining collections of antique print blocks for textile printing. All blocks are hand carved, one of a kind, functional antiques used from circa 1800 through the turn of the 20th century. These forms were made of three layers of local hard woods, some with metal inlay, others only wood, and were used to press multi colored prints directly on fabrics.The process was painstakingly long. Our collection comes from the town of Frydlant in Bohemia, then under the Austro Hungarian Empire and privately owned by the Klinger family. Mostly this long defunct factory produced headscarves for specific towns throughout Eastern Europe as remote as Dhagistan and Turkmenistan. Typically, a town elder (woman) from a village would visit the factory each year and work on a new, incredibly intricate design that women wore in traditional folk fashion. Once drawn the process of carving forms would begin and as many as 50 forms might be used for one pattern. They were multi colored textiles of extreme beauty which are now printed only by modern means. The collection is limited and a great chance for you to own a piece of Czech, indeed, ancient European history. All blocks come with a certificate of origin and age from the collection (in Czech and English) as well as a copy of our 40 minute documentary film.