Our Notes & References

First separate edition of this important, detailed work on the early Russian Tsarinas and Tsars’ clothes and other regalia. Complete with its lithographed plates.

Rare: OCLC shows no holdings in the US and only four in other locations: University of St Andrews, Royal Danish Library, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, and National Library of Poland (without mentioning plates in the collation); the BL has the plates only, without text. The RNB copy (St Petersburg) has only 3 plates, the RGB (Moscow) catalogue does not include any plates in its copy’s collation, the Russian Geographical Society’s copy also does not have any plates. No copies at auctions in the West, and only two complete copies at auctions in Russia.

The most notable work of the archeologist and historian Pavel Savvaitov (1815-95), Opisanie… researches in detail and describes the belongings of the Russian royals, based on 16th- and 17th-century manuscripts from the archives of the Kremlin Armoury. From the variety of luxury materials to the smallest buckles, each chapter focuses on the “Dress, arms, battle armour, and horse gear of Tsar Boris Godunov in 1589”; Dress (1629) and battle armour (1640) of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich; “Dress, headdress, and nightgown of Tsarina Evdokiia Lukianovna in 1642”; “Clothes of Tsarevna Sofiia Alekseevna in 1673”; “Dress and some items of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich in 1676”; “Clothes and footwear of Tsarina Agafia Simeonovna in 1681”; “Regalia and dress of Tsar Fedor Alekseevich in 1682”; and “Royal gifts to boyar Prince V. Golitsyn in 1681 and 1682”.

The nicely detailed lithographed plates demonstrate some of the described costumes and examples of embroidery patterns in gold, silver and silk.

Most of the work (ca. 200 pages) consist in an “index” with extensive explanations of names of clothes, fabrics, household utensils, precious stones, and military equipment, already unknown to Savvaitov’s contemporaries. These dictionary explanations are illustrated with quotes from chronicles and other Russian texts from the 16th and 17th centuries; they also include foreign words and characters, such as Persian and Mongolian – something possible thanks to the wide-ranging press of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, which printed Savvaitov’s work.

It is interesting to note that this dictionary has been interleaved in our copy, probably by the first owner Martynov; a few leaves bear some contemporary handwriting commenting on the content and the definitions.

The appendices include examples of Russian money accounts, detailing terminology and inflation throughout the 17th century, an extract from an inventory book from the late 16th-early 17th century, and two impressively detailed and thorough official statements of dowry from 1712 and 1730. Each lengthy list of items is attested by the brides’ fathers and is confirmed with sworn statements from several witnesses.

Savvaitov’s work first appeared, in the same year 1865, as part of the volume XI of Zapiski Imperatorskogo Arkheologicheskogo Obshchestva [Notes of the Imperial Archaeological Society]. Awarded with a prize by the Imperial Academy of Sciences, it is “a very remarkable contribution to the literature of Russian archaeology. Compared to the similar works of Viskovatov, Stroev, Veltman and Reverend [Archbishop of Tver and Kashin] Savva, it stands out for its greater clarity of content and in many cases, a more satisfactory explanation of the vocabulary” (Bychkov quoting Sreznevskii, our translation). Savvaitov continued to edit and augment his opus until his last days (Bychkov, preface to the second edition). In 1896, the Russian Archaeological Society published the second edition in celebration of the Society’s fiftieth anniversary.

Provenance

A. A. Martynov (probably Aleksei Aleksandrovich Martynov (1818–1903), a Moscow city architect, one of the founders of the Moscow Architectural Society, member of the Moscow Archaeological Society, and author of works on the history of architecture and Moscow studies; he participated in the construction of the Grand Kremlin Palace, and in the restoration and reconstruction of Kremlin cathedrals and royal chambers; booklabel to upper pastedown); faint ink stamps to title verso with shelf mark; acquired from the estate of Ksenia Muratova (1940-2019, a descendant of the celebrated art historian Pavel Muratov, Ksenia was herself a noted art historian, Professor Emerita of Art History at Rennes 2 University in France, and founder of the Pavel Muratov International Center of Studies in Rome).

Bibliography

Bychkov A. F., preface to the second edition of Opisanie starinnykh tsarskikh utvarei, odezhd, oruzhiia, ratnykh dospekhov i konskago pribora, v azbuchnom poriadke raspolozhennoe. Pavla Savvaitova, Sanktpeterburg, Imp. Akad. Nauk, 1896.