Costumes russes: Laitières de Okhta, Faubg St. Petersbourg

What you are looking at

Two women in 19th-century Russian provincial dress are shown in an interior scene. The woman on the left sits on a low wooden bench or stool, facing right, wearing a dark jacket with white apron and a green headscarf. She holds her hands folded in her lap in a posture of repose. The woman on the right stands, wearing a darker dress with a peach or salmon-colored shawl draped over her shoulders and arms, and a matching headscarf. She carries large circular decorated plates or trays suspended from her arms—these appear to be the characteristic copper or brass vessels associated with dairy workers. The setting is spare and neutral, with a pale ground suggesting an indoors or studio space. The title indicates these are milkmaids (laitières) from the Okhta district near St. Petersburg, and the image presents them as types or social characters rather than as individuals.

The dancing

Neither figure is actively dancing. The seated woman holds a static, reserved posture with hands clasped. The standing woman is positioned in profile, her body upright and still, weighted evenly on both legs. The suspended vessels dominate the composition as functional objects rather than props of movement. There is no visible weight transfer, no indication of a closed or open frame, and no suggestion of the footwork or arm sequences that would characterize any dance tradition. The image presents occupational posture and costume rather than choreographed movement.

The dance depicted

This image does not depict dance. It is a character study of Russian provincial women identified by their trade and regional origin. The Okhta milkmaids were a recognizable social type in 19th-century St. Petersburg—working women whose costume and vessel-work were visually distinctive. While folk dancers from rural and working-class communities were a subject of European artistic interest in this period, and while such types sometimes appeared in ethnographic or character dances of theatrical contexts, nothing in this image itself suggests movement, rhythm, or choreography. The women are posed, not in motion.

How it was made

This is a hand-colored lithograph or engraving, identifiable by the precise linear work, the refined gradation of tones, and the characteristic soft modeling of form typical of 19th-century European print-making for documentary and ethnographic purposes. The printing technique allowed for wide circulation of such character studies, which were popular as cultural documentation and as fashionable curiosities among educated European audiences. The artist's monogram and publication information appear in the lower margin, suggesting commercial production by an established print house.

About this work

This is a documentary character print from the 19th century depicting two Russian milkmaids as ethnic or occupational types, not as performers. It belongs in a dance archive only insofar as it records the dress, bearing, and social identity of women whose labor and regional origin made them visually distinctive in the urban landscape of St. Petersburg. The image itself contains no choreography, no movement vocabulary, and no indication of dance practice. It is ethnographic costume documentation rather than dance imagery.

The work is part of a larger body of European character prints that collected regional and occupational types as curiosities or as aids to understanding non-metropolitan European societies. Russian subjects were particularly fashionable in mid-to-late 19th-century French and European visual culture. Such prints often supplied costume reference for theatrical designers and opera companies, and may have circulated as costume guides. However, this particular work records occupational identity and dress, not dance.

How to look at it

Attend to the postures of both figures: they are still, not caught in movement. The seated woman's clasped hands and forward gaze, and the standing woman's upright, balanced stance, express occupational identity and social position rather than kinetic energy or rhythmic intent. The vessel-carrying is functional labor, not a prop held in a dance frame. The print documents how working-class women of this region and trade presented themselves or were conventionally represented—their costume, their bearing, their tools—rather than how they moved in celebration or performance. The absence of suggestion of motion is itself informative: this is ethnographic portraiture, not dance imagery.

The artist

The work is signed "W. Timm" (or similar), identifiable as a practitioner of 19th-century European commercial lithography or engraving specializing in character types and ethnographic subjects. Such artists worked in established print production houses, often in Paris or major cultural centers, and supplied a steady market for character studies, costume documentation, and regional or occupational types. The style and publication format suggest mid-to-late 19th century practice, though attribution beyond the signature and dating would require archival research.

The period

The 19th century saw intense European artistic and commercial interest in documenting the dress, customs, and 'types' of non-metropolitan European populations, particularly Russians, Eastern Europeans, and Scandinavians. This impulse was partly scholarly—feeding anthropological and ethnographic curiosity—and partly aesthetic, as Romanticism and Orientalism made non-Western and rural cultures fashionable subjects for visual consumption. Simultaneously, European opera and ballet were incorporating 'Russian' and 'folk' elements into theatrical spectacle, creating demand for costume reference and cultural documentation. Lithography and commercial engraving made such prints affordable and widely distributed. However, the line between documentary costume study and theatrical dance imagery remained distinct: this print records occupational dress and bearing, not performance.

Where it lives

The work is held in the New York Public Library's Prints collection, catalogued as a work depicting Russian customs and costume. It is one of many 19th-century European character and costume prints in institutional holdings, most of which are costume documentation or ethnographic studies rather than dance-specific imagery.

Questions about this work