Peter the Great’s Lost Letter to Georg Wilhelm de Henning: On the History of Expert Thought and the Antiques Market
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2021.3.619Keywords:
Peter the Great, Georg Wilhelm de Henning, authenticity examination, antiques market, autograph collection, Nikolai P. Likhachev, Noël CharavayAbstract
The elements of expert analysis established in Russian academic circles by the late nineteenth century, when auxiliary historical disciplines became an indispensable part of the academic base of historical knowledge, are described in this article with reference to a lost letter by Peter I to Georg Wilhelm de Henning sent on 24 December 1724. These elements include the study of the letter, the stages and methods of introducing it into scholarly circulation, and the assessment of its significance and value in monetary terms. It is established that the original of the letter ended up in a private collection in the early twentieth century and became inaccessible to historians. However, handwritten copies, a draft, and descriptions have survived. The article analyses the work with Peter I’s letter performed by the members of the commission for the publication of Peter the Great’s letters and papers, as well as by the first owner of the letter, N. K. Bogushevsky, the Parisian antiquarian Noël Charavay, into whose hands the letter fell a decade after its former owner’s death, and N. P. Likhachev, a prominent specialist in a number of auxiliary historical disciplines to whom the antiquary turned for an expert opinion. While researching the copies and descriptions of Peter I’s letter, the authors used traditional methods of expert analysis of the missing original found in the collections of St Petersburg Institute of History (Russian Academy of Sciences), the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, and the National Archives of France. Referring to handwritten materials from the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts, the Russian State Library, and sales catalogues, the authors carry out a brief analysis of the Western European and Russian antiques market in the late nineteenth – early twentieth centuries in relation to Russian documents from the eighteenth century (prices and demand). The attribution of authenticity to historical documents (including the first Russian emperor’s autographs) was not only an issue of the reliability of historical knowledge or academic interest, but also one of reputation of connoisseurs, collectors, antiquarians, and the experts they turned to. At the same time, reputation helped ensure the quality of expertise and was a tool for raising this through horizontal connections within the professional community.
References
AN. Sér. AB XXXVIII. n. 113.
Arkhiv SPbII RAN [Historical Archive of St Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences]. RS [Russian Section]. Coll. 238. List 2; List add. Dos. unnumbered; Stock 270. List 1. Dos. 8, 107; ZES [West-European Section]. Coll. 39 (Rossica). Box 635. No. 4.
Bazarova, T. A., Dimitrov, D. V. et al. (2020). Raspoznat’ i transkribirovat’. Avtografy Petra Velikogo i tekhnologii iskusstvennogo intellekta [To Recognise and Transcribe. Peter the Great’s Autographs and Artificial Intelligence Technologies]. In Vorontsovo pole. Vestnik Rossiiskogo istoricheskogo obshchestva. No. 4, pp. 64–71.
Charavay, N. (Ed.). (1902). Catalogue d’une précieuse collection de lettres autographes… dont la vente aura lieu à Paris, Hôtel des Commissaires-priseurs, rue Drouot, salle n. 8, le samedi, 13 décembre 1902 à trois heures très précises du soir par le ministère de M. Delestre, Commissaire-priseur, 5, rue Saint-Georges, assisté de M. Noёl Charavay, expert en autographes, rue de Furstenberg, 3.
Henning, G. W. de (1995). Ural’skaya perepiska s Petrom I i Ekaterinoi I [Letters from the Urals to Peter I and Catherine I] / ed. by M. O. Akishin. Yekaterinburg, Bank kul’turnoi informatsii. 468 p.
Ivanov, E. P. (1989). Metkoe moskovskoe slovo. Byt i rech’ staroi Moskvy [The Neat Moscow Word. Everyday Life and Language of Old Moscow]. 3rd Ed. Moscow, Moskovskii rabochii. 320 p.
Korepanov, N. S. (2006). Gennin na Urale [Henning in the Urals]. Yekaterinburg, Bank kul‘turnoi informatsii. 280 p.
Likhachev, N. P. (1990). O poddelke ital’yanskikh avtografov [On the Falsification of Italian Autographs] / transl. and comm. by L. G. Klimanov. In Vspomogatel’nye istoricheskie distsipliny. Vol. 21. Leningrad, Nauka, pp. 286–297.
Likhachev, N. P. (1991). Vospominaniya bibliofila i sobiratelya dokumentov i avtografov [Memoirs of a Bibliophile and Document and Autograph Collector] / transl. and comm. by L. G. Klimanov. In Kniga. Issledovaniya i materialy. Coll. 62. Moscow, Knizhnaya palata, pp. 192–211.
Likhatsheff, N. de (1902). De la contrefaçon des autographes italiens. In Charavay, N. (Ed.). L’amateur d’autographes. Revue rétrospective et contemporaine. 35e année. Nouveau série. No. 4. 15 avril 1902, pp. 76–79.
NIOR RGB [Manuscript Department of the Russian State Library]. Stock 342 (Shibanovy). Box. 27. Dos. 49.
Ogneva, L. A. (2001). N. K. Bogushevkii – chlen Pskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva [Nikolai K. Bogushevky as Member of the Pskov Archaeological Society]. In Pskov. Nauchno-prakticheskii, istoriko-kraevedcheskii zhurnal. No. 14, pp. 61–64.
Pis’ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikogo [v 13 t.] [The Letters and Papers of Emperor Peter the Great. 13 Vols.]. (1887–2003). St Petersburg (Leningrad), Moscow. Vol. 1. 681 p. Vol. 13. Iss. 2. 888 p.
Pod’’yapol’skaya, E. P. (1974). Ob istorii i nauchnom znachenii izdaniya “Pis’ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikogo” [On the History and Significance of The Letters and Papers of Emperor Peter the Great]. In Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik za 1972 g. Moskow, Nauka, pp. 56–70.
Redin, D. A. (2003). Lichnaya kantselyariya generala de Gennina: kharakter uchrezhdeniya, shtat, sfera kompetentsii i organizatsii deloproizvodstva [The Personal Chancellery of General de Henning: The Nature of the Institution, Its Staff, Sphere of Competence, and the Organisation of Office Work]. In Ural’skii sbornik. Istoriya. Kul’tura. Religiya. Yekaterinburg, Izdatel’stvo Ural’skogo universiteta. [Iss. 5.], pp. 36–63.
Redin, D. A. (2020). Pravookhranitel’naya deyatel’nost’ generala V. I. Gennina kak instrument bor’by za formirovanie administrativnoi eksterritorial’nosti Gornogo vedomstva v 1720-e – nachale 1730-kh gg. [The Law Enforcement Activity of General G. W. de Henning as an Instrument of Struggle for the Formation of the Administrative Extraterritoriality of the Mining Department between the 1720s and the Early 1730s]. In Ural industrial’nyi. Bakuninskie chteniya. Materialy XIV Vserossiiskoi nauchnoi konferentsii, Ekaterinburg, 16–17 noyabrya 2020 g. v 2 t. Yekaterinburg, Uchebno-metodicheskii tsentr UPI, pp. 122–130.
Revue des autographes, des curiosités de l’histoire et de la biographie. No. 222 (mai 1899). No. 224 (juil. 1899). No. 227 (oct. 1899). No. 230 (jan. 1900). No. 235 (juin 1900). No. 236 (juil. 1900). No. 239 (oct. 1900). No. 241 (déc. 1900). No. 256 (mars 1902).
RGALI [Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts]. Stock 561 (Shibanov). List 1. Dos. 103.
Serov, D. O., Fedorov, A. V. (2019). Dela i sud’by sledovatelei Petra I [The Affairs and Destinies of Investigators under Peter I]. 2nd Ed. Moscow, Yurist. 432 p.
SPbF ARAN [Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg Branch]. Stock 246. List 2. Dos. 130; Stock 246. List 3. Dos. 33.
Voskresenskii, N. A., Anisimov, E. V. (Eds.). (2020). Zakonodatel’nye akty Petra I. Redaktsii i proekty zakonov, zametki, doklady, donosheniya, chelobit’ya i inostrannye istochniki. Sbornik dokumentov v 3 t. [Legislative Acts of Peter I. Versions and Drafts, Notes, Reports, Denunciations, Petitions, and Foreign Sources. Collection of Documents. 3 Vols.] / introd. by D. O. Serov, archival introd. by A. A. Bogdanov. Moscow, Drevlekhranilishche. Vol. 2. Akty ob obshchestvennykh klassakh. 762 р. Vol. 3. Akty o promyshlennosti i torgovli. 848 p.
