Los 4103

Raoult, Ivan Petrovic
(active 1870-1884)Peoples of Georgia and the Caucasus Region

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Fotografie des 19. – 21. Jahrhunderts (Katalog nur online verfügbar)
Auktionsdatum 6.6.2026

Peoples of Georgia and the Caucasus Region. Circa 1878. 14 albumen prints. Each ca. 24 x 20 cm or reverse. Each numbered, titled, and dated by another hand in pencil on the verso.

Jean Raoult (Ivan Petrovich Raoult), a French-born photographer active in the Russian Empire, operated a studio in Odessa from the 1860s to the 1880s and produced extensive ethnographic studies across its diverse regions. In the late 1870s he published the album Collection de types des Peuples de Russie, Roumanie et Bulgarie, comprising over 200 images, and later assembled albums on the landscapes, peoples, and antiquities of the Caucasus, Crimea, and the Volga region. His practice combined artistic, scientific, and documentary aims, encompassing military campaigns during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78) and expeditions with Prof. N. P. Kondakov (1879-82) through the Caucasus, Georgia, Armenia, Mount Athos, and Palestine in search of early Christian antiquities.

Working largely in staged outdoor settings, Raoult emphasized costume, weaponry, and posture to construct typological images aligned with contemporary ethnographic and imperial frameworks. The present group reflects this approach, depicting Georgian and Caucasian subjects in compositions ranging from formal portraits of armed men to more informal scenes of villagers, musicians, laborers, and women in traditional dress. Awarded prizes at the Paris Geographic Exhibition (1875) and the Exposition Universelle (1878), his photographs remain a vivid record of the Russian Empire’s cultural diversity in the late 19th century.