door In the forthcoming Sheraton & Peel auction of 25 April (lot 5833), a striking envelope is being offered. Sent from the Ukrainian village of Stoupky, it bears a railway postmark Popasnaya-31–Kramatorsk dated 29 September 1911 and was addressed to Blaricum, Netherlands. Stoupky and Kramatorsk are located in the province of Donetsk, and Popasnaya in Luhansk.
Until some four years ago, many readers will never have heard of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, comprising the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. Sadly, the Donbas is now known throughout the world.
Striking envelope The envelope was sent by the Dutchman Van den Muyzenberg to Theo Rueter. Two things stand out immediately: the text of Carl Linnaeus in Dutch and the ‘address label’. For this, Rueter’s ex libris was used, along with a Russian postage stamp of 10 kopeks. The Donbas basin contains extensive rock salt deposits. Near the village of Stoupky, an enormous salt mine was constructed, with the help of, among others, Dutch investors. In 1884, the Hollandsche Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Zout in Rusland (HMZER) was established in Dordrecht. The mine was named Peter the Great, after the Russian tsar who opened up the country to Europeans. Van den Muyzenberg had risen from assistant bookkeeper to director.
Rueter The well-known architect—primarily of country houses—Theo Rueter built many such houses in Blaricum and the Gooi region. He built his own house/office in Blaricum in 1901, where he lived from 1902 until his death. Van den Muyzenberg had a house built by Rueter opposite his own, where in 1911 his wife and two children went to live, as education in the Netherlands was better.
Rueter came from an artistic family. His brother Georg was also a graphic designer and created Theo’s ex libris. At the bottom left of the envelope, the sender is indicated—naturally, in Cyrillic.
