PORTFOLIO Louis Choris Louis (or Ludovik/Ludwig) Choris (1795–1828) was a Ukrainian-born artist of German- Russian descent living in St. Petersburg when at the young age of twenty he was chosen from among a field of competitors to be the scientific draftsman for the Romanzoff 132 Expedition to the Pacific. As a teenager Choris had served as the botanical artist on an 1813 Russian expedition led by August Marshal Bieberstein to the Caucasus Mountains. Upon his return, he studied at the Imperial Academy of Art, where his work garnered considerable attention. Named for its financier, imperial chancellor Count Nikolay Romanzoff (sometimes rendered Rumyantsev), and headed by Lieutenant Otto von Kotzebue, the purpose of the Romanzoff expedition was to search the Alaskan coast for a northern passage to the Bering Strait so that Russia could supply her trading posts between California and Alaska without having to sail all the way around Cape Horn. It was also tasked with the documentation of the peoples and lands that they encountered. Like other expeditions to find a northern sea route, it failed in its primary objective, since no such navigable passage existed,1 but Choris and the ship’s scientists were able to document the inhabitants, environments, and material culture of the various locations they touched. Choris’ work was of particular sensitivity for the time, and the Romanzoff Expedition By Michael Edmonds FIG. 1: “Echolovonis a la chasse dans la baie de St. Francisco” (“Echolovonis” hunting at San Francisco Bay). Louis Choris, Voyage pittoresque autour du monde ... Paris, 1822, chapter 3, pl. XIII. Courtesy of Bonhams.
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