131

18.02.1993

Lansere, Natalia Nikolaevna

Album

1931–1932, Leningrad, DPZ [house where prisoners were kept before trial]

Paper, metal, pencil, sanguine, watercolours

17.4cm x 21.6cm

Album, (an exercise book of unlined paper), held together with two metal staples, in a light-purple cover. On the cover is written "НЛансере" in wter-colour paint and "ДПЗ – 1931 г ОКТБ-12 1932" in pencil. On the inside of the cover is written in water-colour paint: "от Наташи 21 Мая 1931 ДПЗ" ["from Natasha 21st May 1931 DPZ"] and below this in pencil "затем ОКТБ-12". The exercise book consists of 36 leaves, of which 2 (at the end) are blank. The remains of 4 torn-out pages are visible. On every page of the exercise book are pencil or water-colour sketches, almost all are dated and annotated. There are sketches of classical sculptures (Michaelangelo, Durer etc) and landscapes drawn from memory, sketches of prison life, architectural sketches, self-portraits in the prison-cell, sketches of family life in freedom (series Summer 1930 in Ples) from memory. On the back of leaf 26 is a pencil list of imprisoned specialists as at 1st March 1933. On leaves 27-32 are written out in pencil well-meant caricatures about the workers of ОКТБ-12, the work of K. Shakhtom, and annotations. From the back of leaf 32 up to and including leaf 34 is written in pencil a comical scene- a circus show- for the workers in ОКТБ-12 to perform.

Cover very tattered, slightly torn in places, has come away from the exercise book itself. Some pencil drawings rubbed away due to friction caused by rubbing against other leaves.

Given by N.N. Lansere. According to the owner's testimony, the exercise book was given to her father, Nikolai Evgenevich Lansere, at the time of his stay in the OGPU internal prison at Shpalernoi in Leningrad, after his first arrest. While imprisoned, N.E. Lansere sketched and on release he took the exercise book with him.