THE BORIS K. VINKLER'S COLLECTION

THE PORTRAIT GALLERY OF FAMOUS PERSONS

Boris K. Vinkler's collection contains approximately 110 000 portraits of persons, renowned for their activities in various spheres. The portraits are supplemented by an adequate information, such as name, patronymic, dates of birth and death. This data can be sometimes accompanied with the articles.

The main aim of the collection is to make a search of interesting or rare portrait accessible. The portraits of the persons of any nationality, country, epoch and human activity is represented in the collection.

Boris K. Vinkler was the first who had been processing the materials of such a volume. He'd been labouring at that task for about 80 years. The unique collection was hitherto inaccessible for general public.

To facilitate a search the portraits are divided into 500 thematic albums.

• 100 years of Russian political history
• The History of Russia
• Painting: Portraits of a General Order
• Russian Portraits
• The World History
• Scientists
• Music
• Literature
• Fine Arts
• Ballet
• Various
• Politics
• Communism in Russia
• Sport
• Cinematography and Theatre (250 albums; more detailed will be represented later)

About the author:

Boris Konstantinovitch Vinkler was born 03/30/1908 in Russia. When he was five, he got a book named "Istoriya Frantsyi v kartinkakh dla detei" ("The Children's History of France in Pictures.") which has caught up the boy. Being a nobleman, he couldn't get a historical education in the Soviet Russia, but picture-collecting became his hobby and lifework. A huge work of composing has been continued during 87 years. About 110 000 portraits was collected.

B. K. Vinkler died in St.Petersburg 11/24/1995, having left his long-years work. We have the honour to represent you that work.

About the collection:

We further use the following terms:

• Portrait An image of various size, depending on edition (post-card, magazine, newspaper or other).
• Album A portrait book of A4 size. Number of portraits on paper depends on their size. The most frequent album sizes are 96 pages (200-300 portraits) and 200 pages (500-600 portraits). The portraits in album have the common theme.
• Collection A complete set of albums.

The collection also includes the following printings:

• "Russkiye portrety" ("The Russian Portraits") in 5 volumes, published by the Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich;
• "Voyna 1812 goda" ("The 1812's War "), 1912, jubilee edition, consecrated to the memory of the 1812's War heroes.

The collection is formally composed, in view of the following data: sphere (literature, science, cinematography, theatre, politics, arts, medicine, education, sports, war, etc.), country, chronology, dates of birth and death.

The types of the portraits are the following:

• black and white portraits (from book sources)
• colour photos (from illustrated magazines)
• newspaper articles, etc.