Historical-ethnographic and visual sources of C. Roth’s printmaking from J. G. Georgi’s edition (on the example of the Ob Ugrians)

Abstract

The subject of this research is the printmaking of C. Roth from the academic edition of J. G. Georgi Georgi “Description of everyone living in Russian state…”. The works of the Nuremberg printmaker Christopher Roth, although being an important source, were not given due attention for a long time, being viewed only in the context of studying the academic work of J. G. Georgi. The this article aims to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the historical-ethnographic and visual sources of C. Roth’s printmaking on the example of the images of the Ob Ugrians (“Ostyak on the Ob River”,  “Ostyak on Ermine Trapping”,  “The Face of Ostyachka”, and “The Back of “Ostyachka”). Based on the developed visual motifs – costumes, characteristic “postures”, attributes, etc., it is possible to reconstruct the list of sources used by C. Roth in his art pieces. The conclusion is made that as the historical-ethnographic and visual sources, C. Roth used drawings (including “plein-air” and expeditionary), " mannequins, and examples of Ostyak traditional dresses from the Siberian collection of the Kunstkamera. However, in creation of such compositions as “ Ostyak in Ermine Trapping”, “The Face of Ostyachka”, and “The Back of “Ostyachka”, the list of the aforementioned sources can be complemented by ethnographic descriptions from the academic editions of the second half of the XVIII century, miniatures from chronicles (“Brief Siberian (Kungur) Chronicle”), as well as ethnographic maps (“Ethnographic Map of Siberia of the Great Northern Expedition”).