MATERIALS TO THE BIOGRAPHY OF THE ARTIST AND PHOTOGRAPHER HIPPOLYTE ROBILLARD

This article presents new facts on the biography of Hippolyte Robillard, talented French artist and distinguished photographer. The sources include information from periodicals and art reference books, materials from museum and archival collections. A special role in the study of Robillard's biography is played by his archive, stored in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (Moscow), which revealed previously unknown facts about the life and work of the French master. The article examines the little-known period in Robillard's oeuvre in the 1840s–1850s, when he worked first as a lithographer and then as a pastelist. The author introduces previously unknown archival materials related to the activities of the French master's photographic studio and his social activities and analyzes the reasons for its rapid decline and liquidation, and provides arguments in favor of a new estimated date of Robillard's death. The main task of the article is to reconstruct the general direction of the artist's creative path, about which little was known until now. Domestic research on the history of light painting rarely mentions Robillard's name, which seems unfair and can be explained by insufficient study of his life and work. Thus, the relevance of studying the legacy of Robillard, deservedly one of the leading masters of photography of the 1860s, becomes evident.