?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,000
ALEXEI F. MAKSIMOV (DATES UNKNOWN)
THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE IN RUSSIA / [WAR LOAN - FORWARD TO VICTORY!] 1917.
46 1/2x28 inches, 118x71 cm. St. Petersburg. Condition B+: replaced losses and repaired tears to text banners affixed and top and bottom; minor creases and repaired tears in margins; slight bleaching at upper left.
A medieval Russian knight gallops off to battle carrying a flag bearing the Romanov coat of arms. As one of the last attempts of Tsarist Russia to raise funds for their doomed involvement in World War I, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in March 1917. As a result, the Bolsheviks took power. Whether the Russian aristocracy rose to the occasion and contributed to this loan is unclear, but what is certain is that the loan was never paid back. In March 1918, Russia signed a peace treaty with Germany, left the war and repudiated all Allied war loans. Copies of this poster were sent to America from Russia and used (with English text banners) "in conjunction with a film to benefit the work of an American medical relief group" (Theofiles p. 143). Theofiles 194 (var), Russian World War I p, 81.
![ALEXEI F. MAKSIMOV (DATES UNKNOWN). THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE IN RUSSIA / [WAR LOAN - FORWARD TO VICTORY!] 1917. 46½x28 inches, 118x71 cm](https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/full//086\809086.jpg)
