Defend to the End Petrograd! Or more loosely translated, "Defend Petrograd with your life!" This poster is from the "other side" in the Revolution, not to say the West, but the anti-Bolshevik White Guards. General Nicolai W. Yudenich, leader of the…
Poor People... Ignatii Stepanovich Shchedrovskii, graphic artist, lithographer and painter, was born in Lithuania, studied in Vilna, and attended the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts at age 18 to 21. His Scenes from Popular Life of 1839 was republished…
Winter Notes on Summer Impressions... Austrian diplomat Augustin de Mayerberg was sent 1661-1662 by Emperor Leopold I to mediate in the fight between Russia and Poland over the Ukraine. The diplomatic mission failed but one happy result was this…
Ur-Land of Oz... An aquatint view – from one of our most beautiful printed volumes – of the pre-Kansas homeland of our local Volga German population, who brought to western Kansas the Turkey-red wheat (as well as the noxious and pesky…
To Russia With Love... The Demidov family of mine owners rose to prominence under Peter I when they were granted extensive landholdings for construction of metallurgical factories in the Urals. Master craftsmen were brought in, factories were built,…
Anteaters for the Tsar! If this New World native, the anteater, could write an account of how he made it to the Kunstkammer in Sankt Pieter Burkh in the early 18th century, it would be a best-seller. Peter the Great had begun to purchase natural…
The Big Pomegranate ... We toyed with idea of calling this exhibition "St. Petersburg: The Second City," not only because of Moscow's historical firstness, but also because its architecture and art looks like nothing else, anywhere else; it embodies…
Blue Boy... Although this volume of plates is attributed in the British Museum Catalogue to William Alexander, nowadays it is usually cataloged under the name of the artist, E. Harding. It has a complicated bibliography: the plates were apparently…
Picture of more than a thousand words... Storch's Picture of Petersburg, 1792, set a standard for European accounts of the city and is still quoted today. Storch says, "One of the most important phenomena of this period [the 18th century] is without…