The creation of a consolidated (national) catalogue of daguerreotypes is a key component of the historical part of the federal "Program for the Preservation of Photographic Documents Included in the State Collections of the Russian Federation."

The discovery and collection of data for the catalog opened a new direction in the study and presentation of the national documentary collection and, at the same time, demonstrated how little this material, unlike paintings or graphic works, is equipped with scientific tools. The lack of comprehensive and diverse literature on the history of photography from the 1840s to 1860s, as well as reference books on daguerreotype artists, both Russian and those working in Russia, often complicates the attribution and dating of photographs. This is also hampered by problems with the preservation of daguerreotypes, associated with chemical defects and physical losses.

However, all this did not prevent the compilers of the "Daguerreotype in Russia" catalog from preparing for publication the entire corpus of unique "metal photographs" discovered to date, not only saving them from oblivion and "fading," but also stimulating further in-depth study of this priceless legacy of Russian history and culture.

The publication of the consolidated scientific catalog "Daguerreotype in Russia" is being carried out by the ROSPHOTO State Museum and Exhibition Center as part of a program to preserve Russia's photographic heritage. The catalog introduces readers and specialists to daguerreotype photographs held in museums, archives, and libraries across the Russian Federation. All of these metal images were created using the earliest photographic process in history, invented in 1839 in France by L.J.M. Daguerre based on the research of J.N. Niepce and refined and developed by enthusiasts of "photography" in many countries throughout the 1840s and 1860s.

Not only Moscow and St. Petersburg institutions, but also regional museums and archival institutions were involved in the creation of the catalog. For the first time, all state museums, archives, and libraries holding daguerreotypes used uniform methods for digitizing and describing photographic documents.

The editorial board of the catalogue included ROSPHOTO employees and invited specialists – historians, art historians and archivists.

Project Directors: Z. M. Kolovsky (ROSPHOTO, General Director), A. V. Maksimova (ROSPHOTO, Director of Exhibition and Publishing Programs, Chairperson of the Council)
Editorial Board: E. V. Barkhatova (RNL), T. G. Saburova (SHM), O. F. Uimanen (ROSPHOTO)

The publication of daguerreotype collections began in 1999, when the State Historical Museum in Moscow hosted the exhibition "At the Origins of Photography," accompanied by the publication of a complete catalog of this, the most extensive collection of "silver metal photographs" in our country. The catalog of the next daguerreotype collection, housed in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, was published in 2012. It was preceded by the catalog of a selected exhibition of works, "The Age of the Daguerreotype: Early Photography in Russia" (2011), held at this world-leading museum.

In addition to these most significant Moscow collections, which are systematically studied and published, many rare examples of early "silver metal photography" held in many other Russian museums, archives, and major libraries have appeared for the first time in this catalog. Collected and introduced into scholarly circulation in the catalogue, they undoubtedly enriched the potential of a wide range of fields in both the humanities and technical knowledge, and also helped to shed new light on the evolution of Russian fine art.

The individual volumes, while preserving the basic principles and general structure of the subject description, differ from each other—some are devoted to several small collections, while others present only a single collection in its entirety.

Seven volumes have been published to date: two comprehensive volumes and five dedicated to individual collections. The total number of daguerreotypes already published has reached 1,000.

The first volume of the catalogue brought together the collections of the Scientific Library of the Russian Academy of Arts (Saint Petersburg), the Russian Ethnographic Museum (Saint Petersburg), the State Russian Museum (Saint Petersburg), the Russian National Library (Saint Petersburg), the State Museum of L. N. Tolstoy (Moscow), the State Memorial and Nature Reserve "L. N. Tolstoy Museum-Estate "Yasnaya Polyana"" (Tula Region, Yasnaya Polyana), the St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Musical Arts (Saint Petersburg), the State Central Theatre Museum named after A. A. Bakhrushin (Moscow), the All-Russian Museum Association of Musical Culture named after M. I. Glinka (Moscow), the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, the St. Petersburg branch of the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Museum-Reserve "Muranovo" Estate named after F. I. Tyutchev, the Military History Museum of Artillery, Engineering Troops and Signal Corps (St. Petersburg), the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve, the Pavlovsk State Museum-Reserve, and the Arkhangelskoye State Museum-Estate (Moscow).

The second volume includes the collections of the Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local History, the Irkutsk Regional Historical and Memorial Museum of the Decembrists, the State Museum of A.S. Pushkin (Moscow), the All-Russian Museum of A.S. Pushkin (St. Petersburg), the Tobolsk Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve, the Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum of Local History, the Museum-Estate of N.G. Chernyshevsky (Saratov), ​​the State Literary and Memorial Museum of N.A. Dobrolyubov (Nizhny Novgorod), the Nizhny Novgorod State Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve, the State Museum of A.M. Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod), the Novgorod State United Museum-Reserve, the Russian Museum of Photography (Nizhny Novgorod Region), the Museum of Organic Culture (Kolomna), the Multimedia Complex of Actual Arts (Moscow), the Polytechnic Museum (Moscow), Primorsky Arsenyev State United Museum (Vladivostok), Yaroslavl State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, Pereslavl-Zalessky State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, Cherepovets Museum Association, Vologda State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, Abramtsevo State Historical, Artistic and Literary Museum-Reserve, Oryol United State Literary Museum of I.S. Turgenev, Kostroma State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, Ulyanovsk Regional Museum of Local History named after I.A. Goncharov, State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, F.M. Dostoevsky Literary and Memorial Museum (St. Petersburg), A.V. Suvorov State Memorial Museum (St. Petersburg), Central Naval Museum (St. Petersburg), Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local History, State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), Rostov Kremlin State Museum-Reserve, Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (Moscow), Russian State Library (Moscow), Russian State Library of Arts (Moscow), Ivangorod Museum, ROSPHOTO State Museum and Exhibition Center (St. Petersburg), Russian National Library (St. Petersburg), A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum (Moscow), Kirov Regional Museum of Local History, Priyutino Literary and Art Museum-Estate, P. E. Shcherbov Historical and Memorial Museum-Estate (Gatchina).

The volume of the State Historical Museum represents the collection of the State Historical Museum (Moscow), and includes new information obtained during ongoing scientific research and restoration work.

The third volume publishes the collection of the Literary Museum of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. The Pushkin House collection is the third largest in the world, after the collections of the State Historical Museum and the Russian State Library.

The fourth volume introduces the collection of the State Literary Museum—the largest literary museum in Russia and one of the largest literary museums in the world, dedicated to documenting and presenting the entire history of Russian literature from its inception to the present day. Such a vast undertaking can only be accomplished with a rich museum collection, and the State Literary Museum possesses just such a collection. Daguerreotypes represent a small portion of the museum's collection. But, like the rest of the museum's collection, they are, in one way or another—through their subjects, origins, and history—connected with the literary annals of Russia.

In the fifth volume, dedicated to the collection of the Russian State Library, ROSPHOTO continues its publication of the most significant state collections of the Russian Federation. This volume is unique in its own way: the majority of the photographs presented were created by a single author—the talented amateur photographer S. N. Korsakov. Working in his own home laboratory, Korsakov, even in 1841, when most people hadn't even considered photography, devoted considerable attention to perfecting the process, striving to achieve artistic expressiveness and the highest image quality. Thus, the main themes in the photographer's works became family life and his immediate surroundings. His daguerreotypes are distinguished by their remarkable imagery—the immediacy of nature and intimacy. Notes by the author and his family on the photo imaging and the results of their planned experiments have been preserved.

The sixth volume presents the State Hermitage Museum's collection, one of the most interesting and diverse. It includes works across virtually every genre—portraits, interiors, landscapes, and reproductions—and traces the history of photography in Russia from the 1840s to the early 1860s.

M. B. Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum

«The Hermitage's daguerreotype collection is distinguished by two deeply significant facts. Emperor Nicholas I was one of the first European rulers to embrace the new technologies of photography. It was to him that Daguerre sent the first examples of his invention as a gift. This set of unique photographs, not transferred to the Hermitage, contrary to the Tsar's orders, is now housed in the Academy of Arts. Emperor Nicholas II was very fond of photography and took photographs constantly, resulting in the Russian imperial family being the most photographed of all the royal courts of Europe. The collection was formed from many sources and traveled from museum to museum».

The seventh and final volume of the project brings together the entire reference apparatus: an index of daguerreotypists, an index of the people depicted, a bibliography, and the remaining unpublished items from the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow), the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda Museum-Reserve (Aleksandrov), the Nizhny Tagil Gornozavodskoy Ural Museum-Reserve, the Military History Museum of Artillery, Engineering Troops, and Signal Corps (St. Petersburg), the Russian State Film and Photo Archive (Krasnogorsk), the Russian State Archive of the Navy (St. Petersburg), the A.V. Suvorov State Memorial Museum (St. Petersburg), the Russian State Library (Moscow), and the ROSPHOTO State Museum and Exhibition Center (St. Petersburg). This volume completes the work on publishing the monuments of early Russian photography in the state collections of the Russian Federation.

The uniqueness of this project lies not only in its identification and attribution, the creation of a reference base for attribution, and the introduction of new methods for studying daguerreotypes into scientific circulation, but also in the fact that it made it possible for the first time to publish many particularly valuable photographic monuments of national significance, which became the initial stage in the formation of the Register of particularly valuable photographic objects included in the state funds of the Russian Federation.

Winner in the Best Inter-Museum Project category at the Intermuseum 2017 festival

Last updated on 18.09.2025