Russian lithographic portrait of the 19th century
22 September 2012 – 22 January 2013
Halls No. 169 – 173, Winter Palace

On 21 September 2012, at the Winter Palace Russian lithographic portrait of the 19th century exhibition was opened. The exhibition displays 150 portraits from the State Hermitage Museum’s lithographic collection for the first time. The exhibition reflects key stages in the development of lithographic art and acquaints viewers with national and international artists that have made prints of the Russian imperial family, statesmen, soldiers, society women, artists and other members in Russian society.

The formation of the State Hermitage Museum collection goes back to the first appearance in Russia in the mid 1810s of a new form of printed art - lithography. An inventory of lithographic portraits made in 1830 was only held in the Winter Palace and already included more than 700 items. At present the State Hermitage Museum’s collection of Russian lithographic portraits is one of the largest museum collections.

The first experiments in Russian lithography come from that period when the artistic world view was sentimental and was about to change to the romantic. An interest in the depth and individuality of the images is reflected in the appearance of small portrait sketches, stunning examples were made by A.O. Orlovsky, O.A. Kiprensky and K.P. and A.P. Brullov. These pictures, which have been taken from real life with energetic lines using Italian pencil, are impressive by their lightness in execution, demonstrating the romantic traits, accentuating the internal state of the model.

The earliest portraits on display at the exhibition are sheets from the album Engravings in Stone, Executed in St. Petersburg in November 1816 published first in Russia by the lithographic work shop of the Military-topographic Depot of the General Staff. Fourteen incunabula of Russian production show you the experiments of V. Forlop, P.F. Sokolov, Kh.F. Reder using the new technology.

Among the first Russian artists to start using lithography was A.G. Venetsianov. The portraits which he made of Ermak, F.N. Romanov, Peter the Great, F.Ya. Le Fort, F. Prokopvich, Ya.F. Dolgorukov and several others already in 1818 and 1819 had been added to the collection of the Imperial Hermitage. Among the more important achievements of lithographer portrait artists of the first third of the 19th century the self portraits of A.O. Orlovsky (1817 and 1820) stand out. These were executed using a realistic key: a precise and deep appearance of the artist is uncovered through the simple external form of the portrait.

It is important to observe that during this period in lithographic art picturesque properties began to dominate. For example the portraits of Pastor F. Reinbot and General A. P. Ermolov, the work of P.F. Sokolov, are startling in their diversity of coloured nuances and the masterly use of the white paper base. Another virtuoso of lithographic techniques was A.A. Vasilevsky. In his black and white lithographic portraits of A.N. Golitsyn, M.M. Speransky, V.V. Dolgoruky and in particular of A.G. Muravyeva he captures the subtle nuances with the lithograph’s pencil with all the transparency of tones of P.F. Sokolov’s original water colours.

Russian lithography has always had a peculiar understanding of the social significance of the images of important people. The serial publication of their contemporaries was undertaken at various periods by such artists as G.F. Gippius, Georg-Johan Heytmann, E.I. Esterreich. For the series Contemporaries (1827-1828) Gippius made a portrait of A.S. Pushkin which even today is considered one of the most accurate. Heytmann made lithographic portraits of the professors of the Imperial Academy of Artists in St. Petersburg - F.F. Shchedrin, I.P. Martos, I.P. Prokofiev (1821). He participated in transferring onto lithographs the portraits of Russian generals by George Dawe from the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace (1824-1827). Esterreich created poetic portraits of Russian writers and scholars, including I.I. Dmitriev, D.I. Yazykov, F.V.Bulgarin, I.A. Krylov, V.A. Zhukovsky (1820-1830s).

The Society for Promotion of the Arts, founded in St. Petersburg in 1820, helped promote the art of lithography. Carrying out a broad programme to popularise art in Russia, the society recruited Academy graduates to make reproductions of paintings. In the second half of the 1830s, the society headed the publication of a large lithographic series dedicated to members of the Russian Academy. Under the overall direction of A.P. Sapozhnikov 56 portraits were made, which are identical in terms of composition and execution. These were to become important for the imagery of leading figures in Russian literature, art and science.

In the 1830s-1840s, lithographic portraits began to appear which had been commissioned by members of aristocratic families. The German artist L. Wagner with great accuracy and expression executed portraits of Russian nobility at the fashionable Baden-Baden resort town. These prints were the latest examples of pencil impromptus, departing from portraiture. In the 1840s, portraits of Emperor Nicholas I, his children and wife became extremely popular, which were painted by a number of Russian artists as well as foreign painters such as F. Chevalier, S. Meyer, J. Fai from pictures by C. Robertson and F. Kruger.

Russian lithograph portraits of the mid 19th century is distinguished by the volume of its images using tonal patterns (Portrait of the family of Senator Turchaninov, lithographer F.S. Pashennnyi), an interest in everyday subjects using Biedermeier aesthetics (Kozlyaninov Family, drawing and lithography by M.A. Zatsepin), and a passion for large scale prints (official formal portraits).

A type of portrait produced for different social classes which could be elaborately or simply decorated, accurately represent the exhibition prints of A.A. Kozlov and V.F. Timm. Timm, a talented illustrator, from 1851 to 1862 devoted himself to release the Russian Art Sheet, a Russian Artistic Chronicle, which included military and domestic scenes. He made 400 lithographic portraits of historically significant people, including heroes from the 1853-1856 Crimean Campaign years, plotted directly on the battle fields.

In the second half of the 19th century the lithographic portrait became more documentary and less artistic in its expression, following the style of photographic images, and became unbelievably popular among all social classes. The monumental publication Edition of the Russian Military Chronicle 1853-1856 consisted of portraits that were uniform in terms of composition and in their desire to establish an external appearance for military heroes, their ranks and medals. The style of the photographic portrait was deliberately followed by P.F. Borel when creating the lithographic sheets of Portrait Gallery of Russian Writers, Artists and Other Famous People in 1859-1863.

Renewed interest in the original graphic portrait came only at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when applied by artists to the lithographic printing of World of Art by L.S. Bakst, A.N. Benoit, O.E. Braz, E.E. Lansere, F.A. Malyavin, V.A. Serov. In 1899, they produced 15 Lithographs by Russian Artists (the exhibition will feature prints by Serov and Bakst). The graceful figure in the Art Nouveau style, with fast impromtu pictures, of contemporary artists with expressive faces captured live

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue (State Hermitage Museum Publishing House, 2012), which has been prepared by the exhibition curator Galina Mirolyubova, a leading researcher in the Department of History of Russian Culture at the State Hermitage Museum.