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The Fedor Ernst Bookplate Collection

The design and collecting of bookplates in the Ukraine was initially closely linked with developments in Russia. The "mir iskusstva" artists included the Ukrainian, Georgii Narbut, who designed several bookplates and inspired his pupils and followers to do the same. During the 1920s engravers in Ukraine and Russia began to treat the bookplate as an integral element of book culture.

1. Bookplate by Leonid Semenovich Khizhinskii

A number of bookplate exhibitions were organized in Ukraine in this period: Kharkov (1927,1932), Odessa (1928), L'vov (1929), Kiev (1930). Materials on the history of the Ukrainian bookplate began to appear in the journal Bibliologicheskie vesti (1923â30), and several monographs were published. In 1931 an article about the bookplate designs of Pavel Kovzhun, who lived in L'vov â then not a part of Soviet Ukraine â appeared and a survey of modern Ukrainian bookplates in a series of articles on bookplates of the peoples of the USSR. Sil'vanskii had a notable collection of bookplates, some 3500 in 1935, of which those collected in the Odessa and Kherson regions were particularly uncommon.

During the 1930s the baton of bookplate collecting and design passed to L'vov. Under Kovzhun's initiative, he having been educated at the Kiev Art School, an important bookplate album was published and in 1934 he collaborated with Sil'vanskii in producing a scarce title on Elena Sakhnovska.

2. Bookplate by Aleksandr Ivanovich Usachev

The considerable interest in bookplates was evidenced by a lengthy review of the 1930 exhibition of bookplates at the Ukrainian Scientific-Research Institute for Book Studies. The foundation of the exhibition was the bookplate collection of Karl Bolsunovskii, which later passed to Stefan Drozdov, from whom the Ukrainian Institute acquired the collection. The collection at present, numbering some 500 bookplates from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries, is at the State Museum of Ukrainian Decorative Arts at Kiev. The reviewer of the exhibition, A. Artiukhova, observed that the collection had been added to during the 1920s through the acquisition of other private collections, especially the armorial bookplates collected by Nikolai Makarenko and Illarion Pleshchinskii (the last also designed bookplates).

Armorial bookplates in the collection, engraved, as a rule, on copper, had been commissioned by M. Repnin, the counts Przhezdetski, Kochubei, and Count Miloradovich. Ukrainians often ordered bookplates in Paris, that for Count Kapnist containing Cyrillic initials in the design. Bookstamps were popular in the nineteenth century too, and many were included in the exhibition. Also included in the exhibition were etched exlibris by Illarion Pleshchinskii, wood engravings by Aleksei Usachev and Elena Sakhnovska, and cliche designs by Vasilii Krichevskii.

3. Bookplate by G. K. Lukomskii

A young art historian became intrigued with bookplates during this era. Fedor Ernst is best known to posterity for major works on the history of Ukrainian architecture and decorative arts, and remembered by inhabitants of Kiev for a fine guidebook to the capital city which was published in 1930 by the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.

Teodor Richard Ludwigovich-Eduardovich Ernst (1891â1942) had commenced his university studies at Berlin University, completing them at Kiev University. He was awarded a university medal for a study of Kievan architecture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and throughout the 1920s devoted himself to museum work and to the history of Ukrainian art. In 1928 he became active in the newly-founded Ukrainian Bibliological Society, and the following year wrote a survey, together with the bookplate collector and secretary of the Society, N. Ivanchenko, of Ukrainian engraving in a large volume devoted to Ukrainian graphic arts.

4. Bookplate by G. K. Lukomskii

Ernst's own bookplate collection has recently become accessible. The latest bookplate in the collection is dated 1930, the collection being now in the possession of the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The collection consists of 45 numbered bookplates from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, together with twentyfive examples of his own bookplate designed by L. Khizhinskii and several reproductions, evidently used for study purposes. The largest number of bookplates in the collection were designed by Khizhinskii and A. Usachev.

Leonid Semenovich Khizhinskii (1896â1973), a noted book designer, designed twenty-seven bookplates. He graduated from the Kiev Art School and G. Narbut Academy of Arts. In 1922 he moved to Leningrad, where he continued his studies at the Leningrad Academy of Arts and then lived out his years in Moscow. His first bookplate [1], a process reproduction of the Kievo-Pechersk Monastery with the Kovnirov Bell Tower and Dnepr River, dated 192.3, was for Fedor Ernst. While in Leningrad, Khizhinskii maintained close links with Ukrainian artists and publishers, doing several bookplates for Kievans, the last dated 1928 for the poet Nikolai Zerov.

5. Bookplate designed by Ernst and engraved by Khizhinskii

Aleksandr Ivanovich Usachev (1891-1957) did many bookplates. From 1924â31 he taught at the Kiev Art School together with such noted artists as Fedor and Vasilii Krichevskii, Mikhail Boichuk, Lev Kramarenko, Sofia Nalepinskaia, Vladimir Tatlin, Kazimir Malev-ich, Illarion Pleshchinskii, Vasilii Kasiian, and Ivan Vrona. In 1924 he designed a laconic bookplate [2] depicting a hammer and sickle which Usachev placed directly in the pupil of an eye â a clear example of the fact that Bolshevist symbolism had even penetrated the intimate genre of the bookplate. In his Kievan period the master reached the peak of his creativity, including that bookplate he designed for Fedor Ernst.

In 1926 a retrospective exhibition of Georgii Ivanovich Narbut (1886-1920) was held in Kiev at the Shevchenko All-Ukrainian Historical Museum. As one of the exhibition organizers, Ernst compiled the catalogue and published several articles about Narbut. The opening was reportedly so crowded that it was difficult to see the exhibits. Narbut had designed several excellent armorial bookplates, and therefore it is remarkable that the Ernst Collection contains no examples of Narbut's work. It is possible these plates were simply removed from the Collection together with others by artists who were persecuted by the security agencies. The year 1930 marked in Soviet Ukraine the commencement of the destruction by the barbaric Stalinist regime of the cultural renaissance which had occurred during the 1920s.

6. Bookplate by Dmitrii Dmitrievich Bushen

Ernst maintained links with the Leningrad Society of Bibliophiles. His collection contains three bookplates designed for the literary critic and bibliophile Erikh Fedorovich Gollerbakh (1895-1942). One of these, by M. V. Ushakov-Poskochin, depicted St Catherine with the symbol of martyrdom â a wheel with palm branch in hand.

Three bookplates were designed by the Lukomskii brothers. Vladimir Kreskent'evich Lukomskii (1882â1942), of Polish-Lithuanian noble descent and elder brother of the noted art historian G. K. Lukomskii, was widely regarded as the pre-eminent Russian authority on heraldry [3]. Grigorii Kreskent'evich Lukomskii (1884-1952), architect and art historian, took an active part during the early postrevolutionary years in the cultural stirrings of the young Ukrainian State. In 1919â20 he was involved in organizing the future Kiev Museum of "Western and Oriental Art created on the basis of the Collection formed by Bogdan and Vera Khanenko and in the measurement and study of early Russian monuments of architecture.

7. Bookplate by Mikhail Fedorovich Nechitailo-Andrienko

At the same time he worked in the same sphere of museum activity as Fedor Ernst. In 1922 Ernst became one of the founders of the Museum Fund, formed as a consequence of the nationalization by the Bolsheviks of art works from private collections. In 1922-23 he worked on the Commission for the Organization of the Lavra Museum of Cults and the Kiev Picture Gallery (now the Kiev Museum of Russian Art), in 1923-24 was a member of the committee of the Museum of Arts (now the Kiev Museum of "Western and Oriental Art), and in December 1923 Ernst was elected head of the art section of the Shevchenko All-Ukrainian Historical Museum (now part of the National Museum of Ukrainian Decorative Art).

In the Ernst Collection G. K. Lukomskii is represented by a bookplate [4] with architectural ruins, and on the reverse the inscription: "Academician Fomin". Ivan Aleksandrovich Fomin (1872-1936), a talented architect and etcher, also is represented in the Ernst Collection by a bookplate designed by him and engraved by Khizhinskii â a nude in an interior for E. Skuridina [5].

8. Bookplate by Fedor K. Vovk

The Moscow artist Dmitrii Dmitrievich Bushen (1893â1984) also went to Paris during the 1920s. He was a member of the "mir iskusstva" group and assistant keeper of the art gallery in The Hermitage Museum. He is represented in the Ernst Collection by his bookplate design [6] for the artist and art historian Petr Ivanovich Neradovskii (1875â1962), done in 1921.

Another artist who emigrated to Paris, in 1923, was the Ukrainian MikhailFedorovichNechitailo-Andrienko (1894-1980). He designed several bookplates for Sil'vanskii, mentioned above. One [7] of these depicts a puppet with four heads encircled by scallops. On the reverse is written: "Sergei Aleksandrovich Sil'vanskii. Kherson, ul. 9 ianvaria, 16". Perhaps the owner of this bookplate used it as a visiting card, but more likely included his address for exchange purposes. The bookplate is dated 1915.

9. Vasilii Grigor'evich Krichevskii

Professor Fedor K. Vovk (1847-1918) has, until recently, been a little known figure. His bookplate gives occasion to briefly recount his career. He began his scholarly activity in a cultural-enlightenment organization at Kiev called the "Molodoe obshchestvo" (Young Society). With its active participation the Southwestern Section of the Russian Geographical Society was opened at Kiev in 1873 in order to study the territory "in its statistical and geographical respects". The anthropologist Fedor Vovk played an important role as a member of the Society. He also took part in publications of the Shevchenko Scientific Society at L'vov. Later he moved to Paris, where he formed a fine library. In 1905 he was allowed to move to Russia, where he worked at the Alexander III Ethnographic Museum. His background, experience, and knowledge enabled him to quickly develop the Ukrainian section of the Museum. He wrote several valuable articles on the anthropology and ethnography for volume two of a study of the Ukrainian people.7 In the spring of 1918 Petrograd University conferred the degree of doctor on Vovk, and he later became a professor of Kiev University, an appointment of which he had dreamed since returning from Europe. He also played an active role in organizing the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. The author of an article about Vovk, P. Stebnitskii, mentioned a bookplate designed by Vovk [8] for himself: a wise wolf who reads a book opened before him.

Two bookplates, both designed in 1928, by the talented Elena Sakhnovska (1902-58) are worthy of note. She was educated at the Kiev Academy of Sciences, joined an organization of artists known as the Association of Revolutionary Arts of the Ukraine, and in 1929 graduated from the Kiev Art Institute, where she studied with Illarion Pleshchinskii. As a book illustrator she did engravings for editions of Taras Shevchenko, Nikolai Gogol, and others, exhibiting in the principal art centres of Europe and America and the international exhibition of wood engraving at Warsaw in 1933. At the last exhibition she was awarded a major prize. In the scarce monograph about her bookplates, her work is described in the introductory article as "accomplished artistic works, ideal as ex libris, conforming to their purpose. In addition, they are characterized by a diversity of ex libris ideas and attention to individual features of the owners of the libraries". Her first bookplate for M. Siniachivskii (1928) was repeated in a variant in 1928, and it is this version which is to be found in the Ernst Collection. Both were wood engravings.

10. Bookplate by P. I. Granovskii

One bookplate in the Collection combines two noted Ukrainian cultural figures: Vasilii Grigor'evich Krichevskii (1872-1952) and Dmitrii Mikhailovich Revutskii (1881-1941). The bookplate is inscribed in the hand of Krichevskii: "To F. L. Ernst from the author", and dated 1929 [9]. At this time Revutskii was a distinguished composer and a close friend of D. I. Iavornitskii, the historian and Cossack singer. Among their shared interests was the Ukrainian guitar, the kobza; they studied the art of kobza-playing, arranged concerts, and lectured on the subject. Both sang well, and Revutskii wrote a piece on the noted Kobzar singer, Ostap Veresai (the manuscript has been lost). A favourite ballad of both was one which lamented the fate of Ukrainians in Turkish captivity, and it is that theme which is depicted on the Revutskii bookplate.

The year 1930 is the date of a bookplate by P. I. Granovskii for the library of a museum in the city of Belaia Tserkov' in Ukraine. The museum is depicted against the background of a picturesque mountain and the river Ros'. In the foreground amidst fallen stones are objects recovered from archaeological diggings. Two other bookplates by the same artist are of interest, both for Stefan Drozdov-Myshkovskii, an archaeologist in Belaia Tserkov' who founded the museum in 1918 and formed a large personal collection of Ukrainian artifacts. The armorial bookplate depicts an eagle with a horseshoe and a cross. The second bears the portrait of Drozdov seated in his library [10].

There is a separate group of armorial bookplates in the Ernst Collection, mostly dating from the turn of the century. That for the "Zaginitske Library" belonged to Bolselav Stazhinskii (1834-1913), artist, jeweller, and bibliophile who inherited the books from his father. Situated at the Zatintse estate, the library numbered more than 16,000 volumes in 1896. In 1913 the heirs sold the estate to Maria Branitskaia for her grandchild Karol Radziwill. The estate was plundered during the revolution of 1917, and the book collection brought to Kiev where a large portion went to the National Library of Ukraine and from there to the library of the Kiev Museum of Russian Art.

The armorial bookplate for Emanuel Sveikovskii depicts a Turkish crescent, with two swords above and below. The Sveikovskiis were related to the Potoskiis, and their fortress-castle, built in the late eighteenth century, was located at Shpikova, Vinnitsa Region.

The heraldic ex libris for the counts Bobrinskii was produced by lithography fn]. It is divided into three sectors: the first contains the Polish eagle against the background of the State flag, a beaver (rebus) in the water, and, in the third, a predator. Bobrinskii was an acquaintance of Fedor Ernst and it is entirely possible that this bookplate was presented to Ernst personally. Udo Ivask, the great specialist on Russian bookplates, attributed this bookplate to the father of Aleksei Bobrinskii, Aleksandr Bobrinskii.

In concluding this account of the Ernst Collection, it must be said that it can not claim to be complete. It is entirely possible that portions of the collection were dispersed. But all the same it is evidence of the interests of a remarkable scholar and his devotion to the graphic arts.

published Nesterenko, Peter at 2005.03.03
written by Nesterenko, Peter

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