As a non-regular employee at the Russian Archaeological Institute of Constantinople before the Russian Revolution, employed there as an art restorer, copyist and photographer, Nikolai Kluge was perhaps the émigré artist most familiar with Istanbul. He continued to work in the same fields after the Revolution, but for the Byzantine Institute of America.
As Olga Iodko, senior research assistant at the St. Petersburg branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has correctly noted, in spite of his output he was never famous, so information about him is very limited. German by origin, he studied at the Odessa Art School and on graduation received a recommendation to enter Imperial Academy of Arts of the Russian Empire. Health problems prevented him from obtaining the title of painter, but he was qualified to teach and this was frequently a financial help to him (Iodko 2016, 197–198). He completed his first work as a copyist in 1897 in Madaba (Jordan), with a reproduction of a floor mosaic depicting a map of the Holy Land. From 1903, he worked as a painter at the Russian Archaeological Institute, actively assisting Fyodor Uspensky and Fyodor Schmidt by making measurements of objects, sketches and photographs. Since he was paid only for the work he produced, he had little security and the letters of colleagues attest that, in spite of his expertise, he lived poorly. All of this led to him being admitted to the Russian Nikolayevskiy Hospital in Istanbul in 1913, suffering from neurasthenia, cardiac disorders and insomnia (Iodko 2016, 204–205). His work gave him the opportunity to make copies of frescoes and mosaics in Istanbul (Chora Church), Chios (Nea Moni), Thessaloniki (Church of Saint Demetrius) and many other places. A written description of the Kariye Mosque (former Chora Church) mosaics was provided by Fyodor Schmidt, but they were cleaned, washed and sketched by Kluge. The sketches had been intended for publication by the Imperial Archaeological Commission, but the rapidly-moving events in the Russian Empire meant that they were never actually published. One of his last places of work was Trabzon, in 1917. Later, because of the Revolution, Kluge fled from Sevastopol to Istanbul. During his first years in the city, he conducted excursions for Russian-speaking émigrés (including Georges Artemoff and Lydia Nikanorova), providing them with detailed information about Byzantine monuments (1921) and later gave a couple of Saturday evening lectures at the so-called Narodniy University in Istanbul (1922). It is known that one of these lectures was devoted to Byzantine churches and was illustrated with his drawings (Anonymous, “Lektsiya N.M. Kluge”, 1922). In addition, he created decorations for charitable events, gave drawing lessons and hoped for the revival of the Russian Archaeological Institute, where he could finally work as a salaried employee, as he had always wanted (Iodko 2016, 209–210). He cherished these dreams until 1928, but the Institute never recovered. After living in Istanbul for some time, he became a Turkish citizen and started to work at the Byzantine Institute of America. As Gerol’d Vzdornov wrote: “It was he who uncovered and then copied the mosaics of St. Sophia of Constantinople. According to the testimony of the Institute’s officials, no other hand possessed greater sensitivity when copying these ancient artworks. What made his copies special was his strict exclusion of his own personal feelings, due to his boundless respect for and devotion to this art.” He continued to work at Hagia Sophia until a week before his death. Kluge died in the American Hospital, which was founded in 1920 by Mark Lambert Bristol in Istanbul, and is buried in the Greek cemetery in Şişli. One obituary referred to him thus: “With his straight, graceful figure, thin facial features, lively eyes, he was a familiar figure on the streets of Istanbul”. It also mentions that he spoke Turkish, lived somewhere in the suburbs, had a good temperament and “for more than half a century generously contributed to the development of Byzantine archaeology” (Anonymous,“Nekrolog”, 1947). But perhaps even more eloquent are the words of (presumably) Thomas Whittemore in his personal correspondence with his colleague that was found by me in the Boğaziçi University Archive: "My eldest and most prized craftsman, Nicolai Kluge, a Russian, in his eightieth year, who became famous in the time of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Institute before the First War and who has worked with me since 1930 is dead."