In December 2009, a well-known Russian art critic, an employee of the Hermitage, and Boris Kustodiev’s granddaughter, Tatyana Kirillovna Kustodieva (1933–2021) donated to the museum one of the photo albums that had been carefully kept in the family for many years. Thanks to this truly priceless gift, the great artist can now be seen not only as the canonized figure, but also as a real person. Moreover, it also allows the museum to acquaint visitors with the little-known side of the artist’s work.

As it turned out, Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev was fond of photography for many years. He tried to capture the world and the people around him in pictures, striving to apprehend curious and important things that interested him as an artist. The album contains 113 black-and-white amateur photographs taken (judging by the available signatures) at the very beginning of the 20^thcentury. This is not a specialized photo journal, but a very ordinary album with thin blue sheets, designed for making pencil drawings. Some of the photos that were once pasted on the pages on both sides have been lost. All photos in the album, except for one on the last page, are amateur. The last photo was taken by a professional photographer and depicts a young Spanish woman with a rose in her hair. Most of the photos were taken by Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev. There are also photographs taken by his brother Mikhail and his wife Yulia. Some are signed by Yulia: her handwriting was confirmed by the artist’s granddaughter Tatiana Kustodieva. The photos are dated 1901–1905.

All preserved photos can be divided into two groups: spontaneous (“situational”) and staged. A small number of staged photographs makes it possible to trace Kustodiev’s activity as a photo artist. The shots were taken in multiple locations, not only in Russia, but also abroad. The album’s leading theme is travel. A group of photographs taken in the Kostroma province is the most numerous. There are about 70 of them. They show Pavlovskoye, Kineshma, the village of Semyonovskoye, as well as the villages of Kozlovka and Krutets. The construction of the artist’s house-studio “Terem” is also depicted in the photos. Some photos present the sights of Veliky Novgorod: the Church of St. Sophia, the bridge, and the belfry. In this album, the artist’s relatives and friends come to life: his mother, sisters, nephews, wife, and the firstborn of the Kustodievs, Kirill. Some expressive photographs were taken in Paris and Seville, where the artist visited in 1904.