Agaspejar cemetery
Taras Shevchenko. Agaspejar cemetery. Pencil on paper (17.2 × 30.5 cm). [20.VI-10.VII 1851]. Taras Shevchenko National Museum, inv. g – 504.
Lower left in pencil inscription: 8. Agaspejar. Top right ink marked: Number 117 – 36.
Cemetery in the Agaspejar valley is located between Kara-Tau and South Ak-Tau. Picture dated by the day expedition out of the Apazyr valley and time spent in the Kugus valley.
Images in the same cemetery with minor modifications repeated Shevchenko in watercolor figure (see number 7) and etching by Br. Zaleski "Agaspejar cemetery" which for details closer to the drawing of Shevchenko than watercolor. In the explanatory text to etching Br. Zaleski gave a description of the cemetery:
"This is – one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the peninsula Mangyshlak. White mountains Ak-Tau fantastic shape, like a garland around the valley in which lies the cemetery. There are countless tombs on it, we reproduce the main ones. They are different from others because of their pediments carved reliefs, painted in bright colors" [album «La vie des steppes Kirghizes», Paris, 1865, p. 55].
These tombs are shown in the third terms in fig. number 79.
More images of the same area, see number 77, 78.
In the literature is found under the title: "Agaspejar" [A. Rusov, Collection of drawings Shevchenko, "Kyiv antiquity", K., 1894, Vol. II, p. 186], "Agasper" ["Catalogue of V. Tarnowski's museum of ukrainian antiquities", Vol. II, Chernigov, 1900, p. 181, № 267].
Storage areas: collections of A. A. Kozachkovsky, V. P. Kakhovski, S. D. Brazol, V. Tarnowski's Chernihiv museum of ukrainian antiquities – № 267, Chernihiv Historical Museum, Gallery of pictures by T.H. Shevchenko (Kharkiv).
I. M. Verykivska
After publication: Taras Shevchenko Complete Works in 10 volumes. – Kyiv: ed. Academy of sciences of UkrSSR, 1964, Vol. 9, № 76 (image), p. 45 – 46 (note).