Our Notes & References

Early use of photography in Russian publishing: the first edition of a luxury album of photographic portraits of the Russian dynasty, in a richly-decorated, full morocco binding.

Extremely rare: there was a second edition the year after, with a more modest title page and much more common, published in Tsarskoe Selo by Shvarts, who also published a 80-cm poster with all 53 portraits on it. We could trace other versions of the work, with minor, varied differences – but all published later. We couldn’t trace any copy of this edition passing through the trade, including in Russia. No holding in WorldCat and only two copies in Russian libraries.

The thick album unites 53 Russian monarchs’ portraits made in a gentle halftone phototype technique, beginning with the ancestor of the Russian princely dynasty of the Ruriks and ending with Aleksandr II, the current tsar at the time of publication. The portraits were photographically reproduced after drawings by the artist P. Lebedev, who signed them. However and strangely enough we couldn’t find much information about this Lebedev. Pasted on thick plates, each portrait is placed within an ornamental gilt frame, above the name and dates of the ruler, also in gilt, in Russian and French.

Notably, Aleksandr’s portrait in our copy is different from the two other copies we could find (GPIB and Eltsin Library, whose portrait is in fact a photograph from life). The portrait in the GPIB copy is also used in some of the copies of the second edition we could find on the market in Russia.

The binding’s upper board boasts a composition known as the ‘Millennium of Russia’, the first monument to the Russian State, erected in 1862 in Velikii Novgorod. Shaped like a bell, the monument is topped with the allegory of Christian Orthodoxy: an Angel supporting a cross and blessing a kneeling woman in a Russian national costume as she leans on a shield with the Russian coat of arms. The middle tier is occupied by six sculptural groups symbolising different periods in the history of Russia: the Foundation, Christianisation, Expulsion of the Mongols, Foundation of an independent Russian Tsardom, Enthronement of the Romanov dynasty, and Creation of the Russian Empire. This highly symbolic binding puts forward the last event: Peter the Great with an Angel pointing the way northwards, to the place of the future St. Petersburg. At Peter’s feet is a kneeling Swede symbolising Russian victory in the Great Northern War.

The monument is placed within a gilt neo-byzantine frame, adorned with the double-headed eagle, coat of arms of Moscow (St George defeating the dragon), Monomakh’s Cap, imperial crowns, and the dates 862 and 1862. The richly decorated -and gilt- chromolithographic title echoes the silhouette of the monument and the frame; it seems that the title is specific to this edition.