From simple lists to decorative and innovative books, the catalogues themselves are our first and most accessible source. As well as breaking down the content, we will make pdfs of catalogues available through our database.

Artists, impresarios and simple visitors to exhibitions left records that allow us to clarify details or better understand the many aspects of how exhibitions were organised and how individual works of art were received.

Archives in Moscow, St Petersburg, the regions of the Russian Federation and Minsk in Belarus have provided substantial information so far. It is our hope that it will be possible to extend our research - and collaborate with partners - in order to investigate material in the archives of former territories within the Russian Empire, now independent states.

As well as advertisements, criticism and commentary, newspapers and journals provide us with artist's views (and later with photographs) of the rooms in which fine and decorative art and other objects were displayed. Such images have much to tell us about no longer extant spaces and often help identify a work only loosely described in the catalogue.

Caricatures, like press reviews and artist's impressions of exhibition halls, can be vital to identifying individual works of art, as well as reflecting how that art was perceived.

Surviving posters mostly relate to exhibitions from the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. They often provide vital supplementary information about an exhibition's location, the precise dates and the price of entry.

If the literature on exhibitions in Europe and North America has grown steadily over the last thirty years, most research into Russian exhibitions has looked at individual cases. This database, for the first time establishing the quantity, scope and nature of exhibitions in the Russian Empire, will stimulate further publications and make it possible to better understand the overall picture.