The article is dedicated to the visits of members of the imperial family to traveling art exhibitions from 1871 to 1900 and their role in the cultural patronage system of the Russian Empire. The focus is on the participation of Emperors Alexander II, Alexander III, and Nicholas II in the exhibition activities of the Society of Traveling Artists. The article analyzes the motives and functions of imperial visits: public representation of the monarchy, symbolic recognition of the artistic community, as well as hidden mechanisms of control and regulation. It examines how the presence of the sovereign influenced the status of the traveling artists, the practices of acquiring works, and the public and contemporary perception of the exhibitions. Special attention is given to the reconstruction of the ceremony of visits and its changes from personal involvement to ritualized performance of "duty." The material of the article is based on archival, epistolary, memoir, and periodical sources. The research relies on a sociocultural approach and R. Wortman's concept of "ceremonial power." Historical-genetic and chronological methods, as well as historical-comparative and biographical analysis, are used to compare the models of patronage under the three monarchs. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that imperial visits to traveling exhibitions are considered not as episodes of secular life, but as tools of cultural policy and public legitimation of autocracy. For the first time, based on the memoirs of I.I. Lazarevsky and a complex of administrative and departmental materials, the order of preparation for Nicholas II's visits is detailed, including the system of admissions, security measures, and regulation of behavior. It is shown that under Alexander II, patronage had an episodic and distant nature, under Alexander III it acquired a personalized form and strengthened the symbolic capital of the traveling artists, while under Nicholas II it maintained external continuity but became predominantly formal. The conclusion is drawn that the dynamics from personal involvement to ritualization reflected a change in the public strategies of the monarchy against the backdrop of a legitimacy crisis. For the artists, the visits were a limited but significant channel of communication with power and a source of institutional protection.
Ksenia Viktorovna Valkova (Sun,) studied this question.