Coptic textile from Count Alexey Bobrinsky's collection in the State Hermitage: the history of one mistake

In the late 1880s, Count Alexey Alexeyevich Bobrinsky, an ethnographer and art historian, made a gift of 29 fragments of Coptic textile to the Imperial Hermitage. However, publications describing the history of the Coptic collection of the Hermitage and using only initials of the donator, attribute the gift to another member of this noble family - Count Alexey Alexandrovich Bobrinsky, Chairman of the Imperial Archaeological Commission. Meanwhile, the documents preserved in two St Petersburg archives, the Russian State Historical Archive, and Archive of the State Hermitage Museum clearly state the name of the donator. Count Alexey Alexeyevich Bobrinsky was a man who selflessly cared for the enrichment of the museum collections, and his name should be remembered along with the names of other patrons of the State Hermitage Museum.