St. Petersburg from the 1850s to the 1910s in Photorgraphs.

27 september—12 november 2018 The active development of photography began in St. Petersburg in the mid-1850s. Saint Petersburg-based professional photographers and amateurs (A. Lorens, G. Wesenberg, I. Bianki, A. Felish, K. Schulz, L. Butrimovich, A. Nasvetevich, A. Erzhemsky, I. Alexandrov, J. Shteinberg, V. Klassen, K. Bulla, A. Gailevich, K. Kubesh, and others) created not only individual photographs, but also full-fledged series of photographs and comprehensive albums devoted to historical events, everyday life, and Petersburg landmarks, many of which later underwent changes or did not survive until the present day.

From the end of the 1890s on, numerous “open letters” depicting St. Petersburg sights are published in various printing techniques from the negatives created by local photographers over the years. In respect to their subject and composition, they echoed photographs printed on albumen, collodion or silver bromide paper, but sometimes were distinguished from them by a more dynamic composition of the frame. In addition to architecture and panoramic views of the capital, masters of photography tried to capture in pictures and postcards many famous Saint Petersburg citizens and various events in the social and cultural life of the capital, especially at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. One of the milestone events of this time was the opening of Emperor Alexander III’s Russian Museum on March 7 (19), 1898.