In Dialogue: Views of Empire: Grand and Humble

This edition of our “In Dialogue” series brings together two different kinds of mid-19th-century lithographs and other thematically related works. Both sets of prints are recent gifts. First came an addendum to the Parker Collection, an elephant-folio-size album containing 25 lithographs with cityscapes showing St. Petersburg and dating to the third quarter of the 19th century. More recently, in the summer of 2020, Marina Belosselsky-Belozersky Kasarda and Vladislav Kasarda donated 30 small hand-colored lithographic prints. These prints date ca. 1850 and show genre scenes and individual figures representing different occupations in Russia at the time: coachmen, porters, water carriers, innkeepers, firefighter and street peddlers, among others.

Conducting research on the works included in these gifts revealed an important connection. They were issued by the same publisher, who held offices in St. Petersburg and Moscow and produced prints in Paris. Remarkably, within their sweeping vistas, the large cityscapes contain multiple figures and entire scenes that find close parallels in the small hand-colored prints. The same subjects are interpreted in two small bronzes from the Parker Collection and a silver snuff box from the Belosselsky-Belozersky Collection (also included in the display).

The general views of St. Petersburg render pictures of the imperial metropolis with its public squares and neoclassical buildings that embody the state, thus inviting admiration while suppling a sense of inclusion and belonging. At the same time, the intimate look at working people in the vibrantly colored small prints acknowledges and affirms class distinctions while advancing the notion of a shared national identity. Although the bronzes and silver box show the same genre scenes as the small prints, they see working people from a bird’s-eye view. Set in “table-top-scapes” within well-appointed homes, these objects would reconcile the sense that the different strata of the society belong together, forming a nation, with a commanding assertion of class distinctions. This complex dynamic continues a tradition that emerged in the 16th century with the creation of printed images of the working classes — the occupations of Paris and Rome, a practice taken to new heights by Annibale Carracci’s drawings of water carriers, wine sellers and different other street peddlers in the city of Bologna.