Russian mother with children

Studio portrait of a Russian woman, sitting, and two children, one of whom she holds on her lap.

Photographer: William Carrick studio (St. Petersburg, Russia), labelled ‘W. Carrick’
Date of photograph: 1860s
Continent: Europe
Geographical area: Central and Eastern Europe
Country: Russia
Region/Place: St. Petersburg
Cultural group: European Russian
Format: Carte de visite
Size: 103 x 62 mm
Acquisition: Joan Evans. Donated August 1941

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Primary documentation: ‘[p.588] Dr. JOAN EVANS, from the property of the late SIR ARTHUR EVANS, Youlbury, Boars Hill, Oxford. [List of items follows]’; ‘[p.590] 29 Photographs of Russian types, in box’: Pitt Rivers Museum accession records (Donations X, 1937–1941), pp.588, 590. In negative: ‘236’ (written on original negative). Notes on mount: ‘W. CARRICK, 19, petite Morskoi’ (printed on mount card); ‘PHOTOGRAPHIE/ W. CARRICK/ 19, petite Morskoi/ à/ ST. PÉTERSBOURG’ (printed on reverse of mount card).

Research notes: This carte de visite has been identified as a photograph by William Carrick, taken from the printed information in Russian and French on the reverse. Carrick’s studio is described as being located at ‘19 petite Morskoi’, or No. 19 Malaya Morskaya [literally, ‘19 Little Morskaya street’], in St. Petersburg. William Carrick (1827–1878) was a photographer, of Scottish descent, who opened a studio at 19 Malaya Morskaya (just off Nevsky Prospect), in St. Petersburg, in 1859. He achieved some success as a commercial portrait photographer but ultimately made his name as a photographer of Russian folk scenes, both urban and rural, and of painting: Jeremy Howard, ‘Carrick, William (1827–1878)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edition), https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/40413 (accessed 29 January 2013). For more information on Carrick’s life and career, see Felicity Ashbee and Julie Lawson, William Carrrick, 1827–1878 (Edinburgh, 1987); Sergei Petrov, ‘William Carrick and Russian Culture’, translated and edited by Felicity Ashbee, Scottish Slavonic Review, 5 (1985), pp.72–87; Felicity Ashbee, ‘William Carrick: A Scots Photographer in St. Petersburg, 1827–1878’, History of Photography, 2/3 (1978), pp.207–222; and Felicity Ashbee, ‘The Carricks of St Petersburg’, in The Caledonian Phalanx: Scots in Russia (Edinburgh, 1987), pp.90–105.