4094 - St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg Photographers: Joseph Daziaro (active 1832–1918), William Carrick (1827–1878), and others. Souvenir album of St. Petersburg. 1880s–90s. Approx. 100 albumen prints, mounted on both sides of gilt-edged album leaves. Various sizes ranging from 21 x 26 cm to 9.5 x 5.5 cm, or vice versa. Some are numbered on the negative; most are annotated in ink in French below the images on the mounts. Bound in a contemporary blue full-canvas album with the gilt-embossed title “Souvenir de St. Petersbourg” on the front cover. A wide-ranging souvenir album combining views of St. Petersburg’s principal monuments and public spaces with scenes of markets and everyday life. Numerous portraits of peasants, monks, merchants, and people in regional costumes belong to the ethnographic tradition closely associated with Carrick’s studio, although individual attributions remain tentative. – Album covers are soiled, with rubbed and partially torn edges; album leaves are stained by age and soiled along the edges, with some warping and water stains on the final two leaves; some prints have light surface scuff marks and fading, particularly along the edges; otherwise, most prints are in good to very good condition. Lit.: David Elliott. *Photography in Russia. 1840–1940*. London: Thames & Hudson, 1992, see pp. 130–131 (comparable images of peasants by Carrick).