Turkmen cemetery in Dolnapa valley

Taras Shevchenko. Turkmen cemetery in the Dolnapa valley. Watercolour (16.5 × 22.5 cm). [VIII 1851].

Location of original is unknown. Described by literary sources. Reproduced by autotype of 1914 ["Russian bibliophile", St. Petersburg, 1914, № 1, between pages 40 – 41]. See also number 2, 4, 8, 11.

Obviously, below on the landscape sheet, as can be seen in reproduction, was the inscription: Turkmen cemetery in the Dolnapa valley. Drawn from nature by Shevchenko.

Watercolor executed in bluish-purple tone [see "Art and printing", 1911, № 3, p. 141, № 23].

Source Dolnapa and the valley of the same name (in modern transcription – Dollapa) located at the north-western slope of the ridge Kara-Tau, where expedition after a long stay in central North Ak-Tau, passed to the Gulf Kochak, obviously in August 1851.

Image of this cemetery reproduced with minor modifications by Br. Zaleski in etching "Dolnapa cemetery". In explanatory texts he wrote:

"… along with Agaspejar cemetery it can give an accurate picture of the Kazakh burial. In this cemetery are many monuments, completed two small stone slabs in a grave form. This type of monument is a feature of Mangyshlak" [album «La vie des steppes Kirghizes», Paris, 1865, p. 65].

Architectural detail of the left side of this figure Br. Zaleski used in the frontispiece to the named album.

Storage areas: property of L. M. Zhemchuzhnikov, V. V. Kochubej, V. P. Kochubej.

In 1911 was displayed at the exhibition of art works of Taras Shevchenko in Kiev (Product, № 58).

I. M. Verykivska, G. P. Palamarchuk, N. P. Prokopenko

After publication: Taras Shevchenko Complete Works in 10 volumes. – Kyiv: ed. Academy of sciences of UkrSSR, 1964, Vol. 9, № 17 (image), p. 16 – 17 (note).