Eternal Values
Who is the author?
Till now the name of the painter, having created the most famous Russian banknotes, was unknown
This opening was made by Kuryatnikova, a manager of special fund of Goznak, suddenly. She was taking up usual work-selecting material for the exhibition, devoted to the 185th anniversary of the Association Goznak.
The author of "Katenka" and "Petrusha"
Natalya Kuryatnikova had to make more precise information about pre-revolutionary painters, working for Goznak. Among other documents there was an autobiography of Alexey Petrovich Troitskiy, a painter.
When Natalya Rustikovna began studying it carefully, she paid attention to the fact that, according to Troitskey"s notes, in 1915, after Lundin"s death (the main engraver of Expedition of preparing state papers), Richard Zarrin, the main painter, suggested Troitskey to go in for classic engraving on steel for intaglio printing. So Richard Zarrin appeared to have been the main painter of Expedition of preparing state papers that time.
The gap in the history of Goznak took place because after revolutionary chaos the enterprise moved not once- from Petersburg to Moscow, then- to evacuation to Tashkent and Penza and back. Specialists, scientists, coming to museum for working, are surprised by hidden there richness of archives and exhibits and the fact that the revolutionary period is kept in good condition thanks to regime state of the enterprise, though thousands of museum units of keeping are still waiting to their inventory and classification.
Having found Troitskey"s notes, the officials of the fund applied to old inventories and started looking for everything what could concern the name of Richard Zarrin and clear up small period of the history of Expedition. But suddenly it cleared up the whole epoch in the history of Russian botanistics: Natalya Kuryatnikova and the officials of the special fund have learned the name of the author of the best Russian banknotes-"Katenka" and "Petrusha". Till now painters and collectors consider the banknotes to be unsurpassed masterpiece of Russian money.
- At the beginning of the century archive documents were if not systematized but at least gathered,- Natalya Kuryatnikova says.- According to the inventory we found some things, belonged to Zarrin. And among them there was a diary of Zarrin and probing intaglio imprint for a banknote, having a note "Picture by Zarrin, engraving by Lundin". Everything coincided Troitskey"s notes and it began restoring.
On the engraving, found by the fund officials, there was a portrait by Alexander the Third from the same "Vitte"s" series as "katenka" and "petrusha". It is absolutely obvious that the style of representation, vignettes, mutual decision of the banknote are similar. Does it mean that the whole series was painted by Zarrin?
But drafts of Zarrin for the famous banknotes have not been found yet. And then the officials of the special fund left searching for a while and started studying the diary, what was not an easy deal itself.
Old, slightly faded ink, used by the painter for making notes with illegible handwriting, almost melt into the paper of the notebook, become brown in time. And this document is difficult to be called a diary- working notes, schedule of working time-"taking up current orders-two hours, library-two hours".
However the brief working notes contains priceless for researchers material- the main painter Zarrin wrote down the points of his schedule systematically, allowing to determine authorship of many documents last century, details of many well-known events. "I was painting an enlarged picture for a frame for shares of Zukov. Negotiating with Bilibin".
Having analyzed unhabitual for a modern man handwritten notes, the officials of the museum found notes, directing straight to the fact that at certain date, at certain time, during the period from 1908 till 1911, the painter was working over these famous banknotes exactly.
Both facial and back sides of the banknotes of 500-rubles par of 1912 and 100-rubles par of 1910 were made by the main painter of Expedition Richard Zarrin and there are irrefutable proofs for it. :" I was painting the project of the facial side of the banknote of 100-rubles", "I was painting the project of the facial and back sides of the banknote of 500-rubles".
Not worth than Lancere and Comov
Notes in the invaluable dairy are from 1907 till 1916. And now the officials of the special fund have got a new but not less interesting task- to try to restore information about the life and work of Richard Zarrin the next period. All collectors of stamps know very well his masterpieces in the field of philately- on the first post stamp of RSFSR in 1918 the painter represented a hand with a sword, cutting a chain. The blue stamp cost 35 kopecks, the brown one cost 70 kopecks.
Because of different spelling of the surname the authorship of Zarrin was not initially established for another case as well. But all the same the truth was opened by a researcher- a collector of rarities, having connection with the first years of aviation development Vladimir Bisengaliev. He found one of the works by Zarrin in the following way: "The decoration of all my small aviation collection is, of course, the luxurious certificate of the Committee of strengthening of Russian navy of 1914 (the certificate itself was painted in 1912). There are 4 planes presented in the rose, I succeeded in defining the kind of one plane, as for the rest, the painter might have composed. Having read the signature of the painter (R. Zarrin") I remembered having met it somewhere already. After some tension of my memory I, having taken a catalogue of the USSR post stamps
From the shelf, found his name. Zarrin" appeared as a decorator of some quantity of stamps of Russian Empire and RSFSR since 1922.The famous stamp of 1918, where a hand with a sword is cutting a chain, belongs to his brush (though, I think, he painted with a pen and India ink, but it sounds better). It was ordered by Temporal government, but appeared in sale at the period of soviet power. In fact in the catalogue he is presented as R.Zarrinsh, but there are no doubts for the same person. The printing is sure to be of high quality. I happened to see analogical works by Somov, Lancere- this one is not worse".
There are almost no hopes for finding the rest of the diary. If pre-revolutionary documents are saved, so during the revolution itself there was full chaos. But the officials are not losing optimism.
Wonderful openings happen to be in the special fund- while preparing for the 200th anniversary of an outstanding Russian physicist Yakobi the first plastic galvanic plate by the personal work of Yakobi himself, directed by him to the secretary of Academy of sciences Fuss together with the report about his opening, considered to have been lost, was found.
Natalya Kuryatnikova tells that every opening of this kind causes joyful and contradictory feelings- from "At last!" till "It"s impossible!".
Yelena Kiseleva
