Нижний Новгород. [Panorama of Nizhniy-Novgorod].

By the mid-19th century, Nizhny-Novgorod was firmly established as the trade capital of the Russian Empire. The all-Russia industrial and art exhibition was held in Nizhny Novgorod in 1896. Other industries gradually developed, and by the dawn of the 20th century it was a first-rank industrial hub as well. Henry Ford helped build a large truck and tractor plant (GAZ) in the late 1920s, sending along engineers and mechanics, including future labour leader Walter Reuther.

Famous writer Maxim Gorky was born there in 1868. During his lifetime, the city was renamed Gorky following his return to the Soviet Union in 1932 on invitation of Joseph Stalin. The city bore his name until 1991. During that time, the city was closed to foreigners to safeguard the security of Soviet military research. An end to the 'closed' status of the city has accompanied the reinstatement of the city's original name in 1990.

Andrey Karelin was much acclaimed at home and abroad during his lifetime, but is rarely studied now. 'As a child, he was apprenticed to an icon painter; later he trained at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg. His continuing identification with fine art appears from the title of the establishment he opened in the western city of Nizhniy Novgorod in 1869, Photography and Painting Portrait Studio (it also incorporated an art school), and from a self-portrait ca.1890 with brush, palette, and canvas. Although his main business was portraiture, he also did landscapes and genre scenes [...]. His album Nizhni Novgorod (1870) lovingly depicted the city's architecture and inhabitants. Karelin collected Russian art and costumes, which increasingly appeared in his pictures.' (Elliott, D. (ed.), 'Photography in Russia 1840-1940', 1992, p. 231).

Karelin's works appear rarely on the market.