Our Notes & References

First edition of this spectacular work, the first catalogue of the newly created Kremlin museum, and mostly destroyed in 1812: “the museum’s most important collections published for the first time” (Museum of the Moscow Kremlin; our translation here and below), including the early 12th-century regalia of Vladimir Monomakh.

A very good, complete copy in contemporary binding and with German princely provenance.

“The first publication of such a crucial part of the Armoury’s collection as the State regalia” (Museum…), the work was published at the Tsar Alexandre I’s expense and is of striking scale—over half a metre high—akin to the luxurious coronation albums of his predecessors Anna and Elizaveta. Like them, the book includes State regalia, but focuses rather and for the first time to the Kremlin treasures as objects of artistic and historical value in their own right, rather than as elements of a coronation ceremony. Its thirty monumental plates present the principal treasures of the Russian monarchy with fine precision and detail, here in excellent condition.

In 1806 Alexander I issued a decree establishing an Imperial Museum based on the collection of the Workshop and the Armoury Chamber. The decree “began the cataloguing of the collections, marked a turning point in the history of the museum’s establishment within the Moscow Kremlin,” and initiated the preservation of the collection that had occasionally been used to pay the salaries of courtiers. Responsibility for transforming the Kremlin’s ancient treasury into a museum was entrusted to the Armory’s Chief Superintendent, Petr Valuev (1743–1814). Aleksei Malinovskii (1762–1840), honorary member of the Armoury and head of the Moscow Archive of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, prepared this publication, the first catalogue of the Armoury’s riches.

With the aim “to bring Russian antiquities, which have remained unknown for several centuries, to the attention of the whole world” (Malinovskii), the book presents a series of short essays providing historical context for each object, all accompanied by a fine engraved plate. Most essays cite chronicles and historical documents as evidence of the objects’ authenticity.

Apparently never previously published as individual images, the most spectacular objects depicted are the regalia of the Grand Prince of Kiev Vladimir Monomakh (1053-1125): the Cap—”the most important and oldest treasure” in the collection (Malinovskii)—together with sceptre, derzhava (globus cruciger), and cross with its luxurious case, all said to have been sent in 1116 by the Byzantine emperor. Malinovskii further suggests that the other Monomakh’s Cap “from the second attire” (“vtorogo nariada”), also shown in the album, may have belonged to the 10th-century Princess Olga of Kiev.

Other treasures illustrated here for the first time include the Crowns of the Kazan Khanate (“acquired after the conquest of Kazan in 1552”), the Astrakhan Khanate (long believed to have been acquired after the conquest of Astrakhan in 1554, but now identified as a crown of Mikhail Fedorovich made in 1627), and the crown of Kuchum Alei of the Kingdom of Siberia, defeated by the Cossack ataman Ermak in the 1580s (in fact the Altabasnaia Crown of 1684). Also shown are the crowns of the brothers Ivan and Petr Alekseevich, the future Peter the Great; as well as Catherine I’s crown, the first Russian Imperial crown, decorated with around 2000 diamonds. We can admire the throne of Boris Godunov, the double throne of Ivan and Petr (shown from three sides), the ceremonial caftan of Ivan the Terrible or Mikhail Fedorovich, imperial lace, and the state shield, among others. The nucleus of this collection today forms part of the Russian Diamond Fund.

Alongside thorough physical descriptions of the treasures and their history, Malinovskii recounts the history of the collection and provides an introductory survey of the Russian sovereigns, from the eleventh-century prince of Kievan Rus Oleg to Peter the Great, highlighting their regalia as documented in contemporary sources.

The only earlier printing ventures of comparable scale and subject were the coronation albums of Anna Ioannovna (1731) and Elizaveta (Elizabeth) Petrovna (1744). The former, of smaller format (c. 30 x 20 cm), offers less refined illustrations and focuses chiefly on ceremonial structures and festivities, showing elements of the regalia only occasionally and usually in groups rather than on separate plates, with the exception of Anna’s crown and the chain of the Order of St Andrew.

Elizabeth’s album, one of the most sumptuous Russian editions of the 18th century, includes a handful of images that served as prototypes for Malinovskii’s publication: the imperial mantle, sword, herald in ceremonial uniform, and the thrones of Mikhail Fedorovich and Aleksei Mikhailovich (under different names in the coronation album). It is worth noting that Tsar Alexander I didn’t have a coronation album published (and neither Paul I nor Catherine II before him).

After the Fire of Moscow in 1812, which destroyed much of the city following the entry of Napoleon’s troops, “not only the boards used for engraving were lost but also almost the entire printrun of the edition; work began on preparing an expanded version comprising Parts 1 and 2–3. The work was completed in the 1830s, but it was never published (the manuscript is now held at the Russian State Archive of Documentary Affairs)” (RGB). The treasures themselves survived thanks to their timely evacuation to another city. They returned in 1813, and the museum’s first exhibition opened in 1814.

Further illustrated books celebrating the Armoury Chamber appeared only several decades later, including Aleksandr Veltman’s smaller-format Moskovskaia oruzheinaia palata [Moscow Armoury Chamber] in 1844, and culminating in Fedor Solntsev’s huge chromolithographed Drevnosti Rossiiskogo Gosudarstva [Antiquities of the Russian State] (1849-53).

With fine provenance. The volume bears an armorial bookplate of the House of Hohenlohe, whose branches became ruling princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1744 and 1764. With origins in the 12th century and still extant today, the family ranks among the longest-established noble houses in Europe. Surmounted by a princely crown of the Holy Roman Empire, the central coat of arms shows the Hohenlohe family arms (two black leopards, one above the other) together with the arms of the Lordship of Langenburg (a striding golden lion) above the Hohenlohe family motto “Ex flammis orior” (“From flames I rise”). The volume might have been acquired by Christian Heinrich of Hohenlohe-Kirchberg (1788-1859), a Württemberg lieutenant-general and adjutant to the king, envoy extraordinary, and minister plenipotentiary at the Russian court in Saint Petersburg from 1825 to 1848. His first wife was Ekaterina Golubtsova (1801-40), a cousin of the political activist Nikolai Ogarev.

Uncommon. OCLC locates physical copies at Met Museum, NYPL, Columbia, Harvard, Getty, and likely University of Wisconsin-Madison, in addition to a couple examples in Europe and a small handful in Russia.

Provenance

Princely House of Hohenlohe (bookplate to upper pastedown).

Bibliography

Obolianinov 1141; Sopikov 7574, Smirdin 2399 (indicated as “75 rub.”).

Lukashin, Aleksei, Alisa Semina. “Russkie koronatsionnye albomy i sborniki XVIII–XIX vekov” // Antikvariat, predmety iskusstva i kollektsionirovaniia, no. 36, 2006.

Markova, Nina. “Ob istorii sozdaniia koronatsionnogo alboma imperatritsy Elizavety Petrovny” // Nasledie, no. 1 (30), 2011.

Muzei Moskovskogo Kremlia. “Oruzheinaia palata”, Ministerstvo kiltury Rossiiskoi federatsii.

V. G. “Sokolov, Ivan Alekseevich”, Russkii biograficheskii slovar A. A. Polovtsova. T. 19, 1909.

RGB, catalogue note to its own copy.