The exhibition of the Engels Museum of Local Lore includes a letter from Philip Yakovlevich Weber, the eldest son of the artist Yakov Yakovlevich Weber, Honored Art Worker of the Republic of Volga Germans, addressed to the directorate of the Engels Museum of Local Lore with a request to provide information about the whereabouts of his father’s sketches and studies.

In 1937, Yakov Weber was accused of anti-Soviet activities, repressed and sent into exile to one of the regions of Kazakhstan. In 1941, at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, after the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On the resettlement of Germans living in the Volga region” from August 28, 1941 was issued, the Autonomous Republic of Volga Germans was abolished. In September–October 1941, up to half a million Soviet Germans were deported. Yakov Weber’s family was not spared. During the forced deportation, the family of the artist Yakov Weber left about a hundred sketches and studies of the artist to be stored in the city of Saratov, and some of the paintings were part of the collection of the Central Museum of the Republic of Volga Germans. It was not possible to determine the whereabouts of these works after the war. In many respects, the problem of finding the works was due to the fact that after the artist’s death in 1958, the names of people to whom the works of the artist were handed over for storage remained unknown.

In a handwritten letter, Philip Weber appeals to the management of the Engels Museum of Local Lore with a request to confirm or deny the information about his father’s previously lost paintings that were allegedly donated and stored in the museum. The works in question were created in the pre-war period, which is considered to be the heyday of the artist’s creative career. It is worth noting that until his last days Yakov Weber himself never gave up hope of finding the works scattered around the world and personally sent written requests to his students asking for help in the search.

To date, the fate of many early works by Yakov Weber, painted during his studies at the Imperial Academy of Arts, including the famous Volga studies, created between 1901 and 1910 in the artist’s native land, is unknown.