The New York Public Library offers access to thousands of materials digitized from its collections. Visual, as well as some textual and audio/video materials, are available via the NYPL’s Digital Collections. Textual and some visual materials are available via HathiTrust. All of them are freely available from wherever one has access to the Internet. 

Khudozhestvennyia sokrovishcha Rossii [Art Treasures of Russia] is one of the best Russian periodicals on art from the beginning of the 20^th century. It was published by the Imperial Society for the Promotion of Art between 1901 and 1907. A total of 84 monthly issues appeared and all of them are held by the NYPL. They were richly illustrated, including plates (partly color), portraits, and facsimiles. The text is in Russian and captions are in Russian and French.

The founding editor of this periodical was Alexandre Nikolaevich Benois (1870-1960), a Russian artist, art critic, and historian. In 1903 with no. 4 he was succeeded by Adrian Viktorovich Prakhov (1846-1916), a Russian art critic, archaeologist, and art historian. The design of the publication was entrusted to famous Russian artists of the early twentieth century: Evgeni Evgenevich Lansere (1875-1946), Léon Bakst  (1866-1924),  Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky/ Mstislavas Dobužinskis (1875-1957), Konstantin Andreevich Somov (1869-1939), and Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois (1870-1960).

The goal of the magazine was the systematic dissemination of information about the monuments of the world and domestic art held in Russian collections. The journal published reproductions of paintings, photographs of sculptures, and architecture (including exterior and interior). Many works presented in the publication were held in private collections and thus were unknown to the general public. Contributing authors reviewed the art of the era of Peter the Great. Separate thematic issues were devoted to the Armory, the monuments of Peterhof, Tsarskoe Selo, the Stroganov Palace, and the Hermitage’s jewelry gallery.

The NYPL has digitized more than a thousand illustrations from Khudozhestvennyia sokrovishcha Rossii.  One can also view them as a book. Textual sections of volumes 4-6 have been digitized from the collection of Harvard University and are available in HathiTrust. Volumes 1, 3-4 have been digitized from the collection of the University of Toronto and are available in the Internet Archive.

For more on the NYPL's collections in the filed of Russian book art of the early 20th century see: Edward Kasinec and Robert Davis, "Russian Book Arts on the Eve of World War One: The New York Public Library Collections," The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts 14 (Autumn, 1989): 94-111.

More Digitized Slavica:

• Novoe Ruskoe Slovo Now Available in Digital Format