History and Culture: Exhibition of portrait photography of the 1860s presented at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg

On November 19, 2022, the exhibition The Pantheon of Hippolyte Robillard. Portrait Photography in Russia in the 1860s opens in the Picket Hall of the Winter Palace (State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg). For the first time ever, 50 best works of the French photo artist from the collections of St. Petersburg and Moscow are showcased at the exhibition.

They include unique materials from the personal archive of Hippolyte Robillard which demonstrate the highest level of development of early light painting technologies and creative searches of masters, who worked in Russia in the 1860s.

Hippolyte Charles Gabriel Robillard (1804/1806-1888) was a French artist, well-known in Russia in the middle of the XIX century first as a master of pastel portraiture and later, in the first half of the 1860s, as the owner of one of the most popular photo studios in St. Petersburg.

The pinnacle of Hippolyte Robillard’s professional success as a popular metropolitan light painter was the establishment of the portrait gallery of the Romanovs, on which the photographer worked, starting from 1862 and up to the termination of his activities in 1865. The creative success of the master was the portrait of Grand Dukes Nicholas and Alexander Alexandrovich, created in March 1862.

The exhibition The Pantheon of Hippolyte Robillard. Portrait Photography in Russia in the 1860s also features children’s pictures, demonstrating the skill of the artist. He tried, if not to reveal the inner world of the child, then to at least get closer to this goal. The photographs of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, taken in 1862-1864, are particularly expressive.

Visitors will have an opportunity to explore the private archives of Hippolyte Robillard containing unique documents, which reveal the specifics of the photo studio’s activity. Of special interest are the master’s unfinished works. In particular, blanks for pictures in the carte de visite format, made on thin salted paper and left uncut.

The exposition The Pantheon of Hippolyte Robillard. Portrait Photography in Russia in the 1860s brings to a close a long-term research project of the State Hermitage Museum, dedicated to the study of various aspects of the formation of the new art. Previous exhibitions The Era of the Daguerreotype. Early Photography in Russia (2011) and Studio “Levitsky’s Photography”. Early Russian Photography in the State Hermitage Museum’s Collections (2015) allowed visitors to dive into the atmosphere of the first years of the existence of photographic art.

The exhibition will run until February 19, 2023.