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William Carrick
Studio portrait of a young Russian woman, an egg seller, standing, carrying wooden vessels on her back.
1860s
Carte de visite
Pitt Rivers Museum
Joan Evans - Donated August 1941, 1941.8.144
LL/113134
Publications history
Contemporary publication - This image has been reproduced as an engraving in W. R. S. Ralston, 'A Few Russian Photographs', Good Words, 11 (1870), p.672, No.5, described in the accompanying article as being one of two 'girls who trade in eggs and herrings'. The identification of the woman portrayed here as being (of the two) an egg seller is confirmed by comparison with another photograph by Carrick of the other woman (No.2 as depicted in the engraving) found in a collection elsewhere, described there as a herring seller: http://www.mobypicture.com/user/larrysa/view/14326727 (accessed 27 June 2013). [Philip Grover 27/06/2013]
This carte de visite has been published in Elizabeth Edwards, 'Evolving Images: Photography, Race and Popular Darwinism', in Diana Donald and Jane Munro (eds.), Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts (Cambridge and New Haven, 2009), p.170, figure 176.9: 'William Carrick (St Petersburg, Russia), woman with a wooden vessel, possibly a street vendor, ca. 1873. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. (C.118)'; also listed on p.324 of the 'Checklist of Exhibits' as catalogue number 118. [PG 24/01/2013]
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. [PG 06/02/2013]
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. '[B]y the early 1860s he had begun to print card sets of photographs of Russian "types" for sale as souvenirs. He was to continue making and adding to these for the next decade and a half. They include St Petersburg hawkers (raznoschiki) as well as other workers and peasants from both town and country. For a set of [...] such images which he had given to the liberal but sickly heir apparent, Grand Duke Nicholas, in 1862, he was presented with a diamond ring. Among those he photographed in the atelier were a boy abacus seller, a milkmaid, a cooper, a glazier, buskers, a knife-grinder, a nurseryman, a glove seller, a chimney sweep, soldiers, and various armed Caucasians in national costume. Often classically posing his models, he gained renown for his evocation of dignity in labour. [...] Carrick thus pioneered Russian ethnographic photography, and left a great legacy of hundreds of photographs': Jeremy Howard, 'Carrick, William (1827-1878)', in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edition), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/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. [Philip Grover 29/01/2013]
This woman has been identified by Philip Grover as an 'egg seller', from a captioned photograph by Carrick of a different woman carrying the same kind of wooden vessels in a collection elsewhere: http://www.19thCenturyPhotos.com/Egg-seller-125257.htm (accessed 11 June 2013). [PG 11/06/2013]
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