About the portrait of an unknown officer from the collection of the State Historical Museum

Abstract

The study of history, as you know, involves turning to narrative sources — folklore, chronicles, memoirs, etc. Such sources are taken into account and serve, as a rule, as additional material, since they are not free from a subjective view. Thus, artistic images have not only cultural value, but can also act as a narrative source, since they carry a significant part of the conventions (transmission of shapes, colors, detail). The author of the portrait, like the writer, invests the subjective, but at the same time he impartially transfers to the canvas what helps careful research to see in minor details the origins of important consequences. The appearance of photography has significantly reduced the subjective in the image. The photographer is deprived (for the most part) of the opportunity to add something from himself, he only chooses the moment, becomes an intermediary, a guide to the past. A sufficient number of photographic images have come down to our days, and a significant part of them carries a story that only needs to be solved. The article is devoted to the study of a photo portrait depicting a previously unknown officer. Based on the principles of a systematic approach and a historical-subject method, the authors carried out the attribution of the portrait of an unknown oberst-lieutenant from the collection of the State Historical Museum. In the article, the authors have established an approximate period of time for the creation of the studied photoportrait, created in the  period from 1878 to 1882. The result of the study was the introduction into scientific circulation of a previously unknown photo portrait of cavalry General Friedrich Eugen Johan, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. The authors’ reading of each element of the portrait helped to choose the right direction of research, in which each element became the key to successful attribution. The authors note that the full name and identity of the identified officer can be verified on the basis of a portrait stored in the collection of images of the World Biographical Encyclopedia.

Keywords:

attribution, general, field marshal general, order, Iron cross, portrait, uniform, historical and subject method