About this artwork

In the 1870s Carrick travelled to the Russian interior, visiting Simbirsk on the banks of the Volga, some seven hundred miles from St Petersburg. Here, in Russia's agricultural heartland, he encountered rural communities whose situation had improved little since the abolition of serfdom - a form of feudal bonding - in 1861. Carrick photographed the peasants at rest and in the fields, emphasising what he perceived to be the dignified and virtuous aspects of their labour.

Updated before 2020

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William Carrick

William Carrick