Printing of the Expedition Photographs of M. A. Krukovsky in Books and Journals of the Early 20th Century

The circulating nature of photography has been studied by visual anthropologists and historians of photography. Classical consideration of photographic collections without addressing the practice of printing expeditionary materials in magazines and books can lead to the loss of details of image circulation and valuable information for material attribution. In the case of the photographic heritage of Mikhail Krukovsky, we cross-analysed photographic prints, negatives from the collection MAE No. 1363, MAE И 1797 and the following editions: “Russia in Pictures”, “Olonetsky Krai...”, “Along the Mountains and Valleys...”. Krukovsky used both his own photographs and drawings based on photographs as illustrations for his publications. Sometimes new images were created by painters through borrowing only certain parts of photographs. While comparing the images, it was possible to identify published subjects that have no analogues in the Kunstkamera collection. Most of the portraits in the publications were additionally processed by painters. The added dashed lines, although they reduce the detail of the original images, made it possible to transfer a continuous photographic image to typographic clichés and to publish them in a cheaper way. Krukovsky did not adhere to any strategy in publishing ethnographic photographs in his editions, as evidenced by three male portraits in the publication “Olonetsky Krai...”, which were not retouched in any way

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