Los 4070

Moscow
Panorama of Moscow

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Fotografie des 19. – 21. Jahrhunderts (Katalog nur online verfügbar)
Auktionsdatum 29.11.2025

Photographers: Scherer & Nabholz (active ca. 1860-1868), published by Kozma Terentyevich Soldatyonkov (1818-1901). Panorama von Moskau. 1867. 16 albumen prints, mounted to boards and joined with paper tape into an accordion-fold panorama. Each ca. 34 x 40 cm (entire size: ca. 640 x 61 cm). Additional mounted albumen print (ca. 27 x 33 cm) on the inside of the rear board, depicting the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Bound in full-leather album with raised decorative border and large embossed presentation in Russian within raised oval frame on upper cover; front pastedown with gilt-stamped presentation inscription in German: “Panorama von Moskau. Zum Andenken für Louise u. Ludwig Knop. 10 Juni 1868 von K. Soldatonkoff.”

This panorama of Moscow, composed of sixteen large-format albumen prints joined to form a 360-degree view of the city, is among the most technically ambitious photographic achievements of 19th-century Russia. Taken in 1867 from the rooftop of the then-unfinished Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the photographs depict the city in panoramic detail - from the bend of the Moskva River to the walls of the Kremlin - providing a broad view of Moscow’s religious, political, and industrial center. Extending over six meters when fully assembled, the panorama’s scale and the precision of its alignment represent a notable technical achievement of the period.
The work is attributed to the Swiss-born photographers Martin Scherer and Georgy Nabholz, whose Moscow studio was known for its large-format city views. Using the wet-collodion process, they produced sixteen carefully composed exposures from a high vantage point, coordinating them so precisely that the transitions appear uninterrupted. Their studio had received a silver medal for photographic excellence at the Moscow industrial exhibition of 1865, and this panorama, conceived at the height of their collaboration, is regarded as one of their principal works.
The project was commissioned and published by Kozma Terentyevich Soldatyonkov (1818-1901), a textile magnate, philanthropist, and prominent figure in Moscow’s cultural life. Rather than intended for commercial distribution, it was presented as a gift to select individuals. This copy was inscribed and presented in June 1868 to Ludwig Knoop (1821-1894) and his wife Louise. A Bremen-born industrialist, Knoop had settled in Russia in the 1840s, contributed decisively to the development of the textile industry, and was later ennobled by Tsar Alexander II.
Only one other example of this panorama is known, preserved in the Joachim Bonnemaison Collection of Panoramic Photography at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, formerly part of the library of the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. No copies are recorded in Russian institutions. Its rarity, provenance, and scale - combined with its technical sophistication and ceremonial character - underscore the album’s significance as a landmark of 19th-century Russian photographic, urban, and diplomatic history. – Accordion folds reinforced with later paper tape, some sections lifting or torn; some foxing, smudge marks, and very light edge fading on several prints; deep scratches in the lower portion of two boards. Otherwise, all prints with strong tones and in good to very good condition.

Provenance: Gifted by Kozma Terentyevich Soldatyonkov to Louise and Ludwig Knoop in 1868; thereafter by descent in the Knoop family; Villa Grisebach, Berlin, 26 November 2014, lot 2167; Sotheby’s, London, 28 April 2016, lot 53.