The art collection of the Ulyanovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore named after Ivan Goncharov presents an etching by Mikhail Ivanovich Makhayev “View of the Town of Simbirsk from the Northwestern Side”. This etching is the first realistic image of Simbirsk and is part of the “Collection of Russian and Siberian Cities” series.
From 1763 to 1765, a Senate commission under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Ivanovich Svechin conducted an audit of ship scaffolding and found out the reasons behind the impoverishment of state peasants of the Kazan Governorate. Upon returning to Saint Petersburg, the members of the commission brought along, among other things, 28 pamphlets (topographical views) of “the towns that were passed along the way, ” including Kazan, Simbirsk, Cheboksary, Vladimir and others. The drawings were transferred to the Academy of Sciences for fact-checking and the further creation of engravings.
This work was entrusted to the experienced artist, engraver and landscapist of the 18th century Mikhail Ivanovich Makhayev. He was the best typeface designer of the Academy of Sciences who engraved a large number of maps and drawings; he made inscriptions and legends for dozens of etchings in the Engraving Chamber of the Academy of Sciences in the 1730s–1760s. Makhayev’s main contribution to Russian art is related to the development of the landscape genre. In fact, Makhayev became the first professional in this field in Russia, creating images of Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
In the 1760s, Mikhail Ivanovich Makhayev made etchings of the Volga region cities based on the drawings of Alexander Ivanovich Svechin. Makhayev redrew 12 of the 14 Svechin’s pamphlets given to him. With the help of his students, he “brushed up” one large view of Kazan and six views of other cities of a smaller format. While keeping Svechin’s views mostly unchanged, Mikhail Makhayev still added elements that made them “relatively landscapy”. The artist added staffage to the pamphlets — wanderers climbing the Simbirsk Mountain in “Simbirsk”, carpenters busy cutting boards on the banks of the Kazanka River, lovers on a boat in “Cheboksary”, and peasants arguing near a broken cart in “Saransk”. In April 1769, engravings of Kazan, Cheboksary, and Vladimir were made, in October there were four more, and finally, in February 1770, after Makhayev’s death, the last etching based on his drawing “Simbirsk” was completed.
