Album “Fifty Images from the History of Russia's German Baltic Provinces” (vol. 1)

Artist Friedrich Ludwig von Maydell is regarded as the founder of the Baltic German tradition of historical imagery. Before the publication of the first two volumes of his album Fifty Images from the History of the German Baltic Provinces of Russia,[^1] only a few visualisations of specific historical events from modern-day Estonia and Latvia — then parts of the Russian empire — were known. In a broader context, his series clearly reflects a much larger shift: the surge of romantic nationalism that swept across Europe in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, along with a growing interest in (national) history. Of the album, originally planned in five volumes, only the first two were completed, containing 20 images in total and covering the years 1156—1291.