Pre-Revolutionary Russian Photo Album of a Country Estate

Cloth. Very Good. N.d., circa 1890. Oblong, 28 by 35 cm. 41 pages of heavy card, with mounted photos, plus blanks following. With 110 photos, 16 of which are large format, generally about 24 by 17 cm, and 94, a smaller format, generally, about 11 by 8 cm. Depicting every aspect of the estate, including both the lives of the aristocratic proprietors and their social circle to the peasants -- obviously only a generation or so removed from serfdom -- who worked the estate. We see photos of the imposing "Palladian" manor house or palace, which has some distinctly Russified elements applied to an otherwise more generic neo-classical cosmopolitan style, as well as the modest wooden thatched cottages, with windows not quite square and other irregularities, of the workers. Shown are the grounds, with a large lake, meadows, dirt roads, woods, and the cultivated fields. Most interesting of all, though, are the abundant photos of the people. Thus are records of the wealthy aristocrats at play -- playing tennis, cards, boating, swimming, or at a picnic or out for a stroll, and so there are photos of the privileged class socializing and a few, courting romantically. The peasants are shown haying, reaping and working the fields, moving the crop, and performing other duties. The haystacks they created could be towering, probably the equivalent of three stories of a building, and so among the more entertaining photos is one with the workers atop such a stack and another with several spaced apart on a side, and yet another in which they appear to be belaying themselves upward. Many of the photos are posed group photos, and these are of no lesser interest, as they convey the charmed existence enjoyed by the upper crust and the grit, rigor and spartan means experienced by those underneath. Equine subjects abound, both of sporting and draft animals. While some of the photos are faded or washed out with the tolls of time, they remain generally quite crisp, and the photo quality from an aesthetic point-of-view is high -- they are well-composed photos, and we would guess they were snapped either by a professional or a very capable amateur. Condition: cover with considerable soiling. Card leaves with browned, or age toned, edges. Photos, as already stated, sometimes faded. (Inventory #: 006741)