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Great Private Collections of Imperial Russia Oleg Neverov’s Great Private Collections of Imperial Russia was released in Moscow in 2004 by the Slovo Publishing House and has 256 pages. The book provides a survey of private collecting in Imperial Russia from the first initiatives by members of Peter the Great’s retinue to the Moscow collections of the European avant-garde at the start of the 20th century. The 40 or so descriptions of collections include those formed by the aristocracy in the 18th century by the princely families of Yusupovs and Golitsyns, as well as the Counts Stroganov, Vorontsov, and Sheremetiev; by the upper stratum of government officials in the 19th century, such as Dmitry Tatishchev, Prince Alexander Gorchakov, Alexander Stieglitz and Alexander Polovtsov; and the Moscow industrialists at the beginning of the 20th century, such as Savva Mamontov, the Morozov brothers, the Shchukin brothers and the Ryabushinskys. There is also a discussion of the Russian collections that were assembled abroad by the Demidovs, Peter Saburov and Alexander Bazilevsky. More than 340 illustrations accompany the lively narrative about collectors and their collections, many of which have today become the property of famous museums. The book has an introductory article by Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage. He comments that: "Private collections are a very important element in the world of arts. Without collectors many artists would find it impossible to create their work, and there would be hardly any new museums. Great art belongs in museums. But this product of the artist’s genius finds its way into a museum and lives there only after passing through the hands of an imaginative collector." Prince Nikolai Romanov, the great great grandson of Emperor Nicholas I and head of the House of Romanovs, has written a foreword to the book which stresses that "the biggest collector in our family was, of course, Catherine the Great, who laid the basis for art galleries in the imperial palaces. However, the collections which appeared in later reigns are no less important both in terms of quantity and quality." The book’s author, Oleg Neverov, holds a doctorate in art history and is the curator of cut gems in the State Hermitage’s Department of the Ancient World. He has overseen various exhibitions both in the museum and outside and has to his credit many publications about the collection of the Hermitage and about outstanding collectors in Russia and Europe. Dr Neverov is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the History of Collections published in Îxford. Emmanuel Ducamp has written the commentaries on the illustrations. He is a specialist on 18th and 19th century Russian history and vice president of the Association Paris-St Petersbourg, which facilitates cultural relations between Russian and France. The first private collections appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 18th century during the reign of Peter the Great. However, just like the emperor’s Kunstkammer, they consisted of rarities and oddities rather than works of art selected for their aesthetic qualities. It was in the reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna , then under Catherine II that true art collections were assembled by a small number of enlightened aristocrats from among the entourage of the imperial family, often acting in their capacity as diplomats. Among the leading collectors of the time were the princely clan of Golitsyns and the heirs to the oldest families in the realm such as the Yusupovs, the Sheremetievs, and the Stroganovs, as well as the personal favorites of the Empress, Gregory Orlov and Gregory Potemkin. Starting in the 19th century, diplomats of lesser backgrounds began to amass collections, as did scions of the noble families who lived abroad and used their proximity to the art markets and to the artists of the age to further their collections. This was the case of the Demidovs, who were established first in Paris, later in Rome and Florence. During the second half of the 19th century, when the industrial revolution turned Moscow into a center of economic activity in the Russian Empire and moved the country’s center of intellectual life back towards the ancient capital, the merchant class emerged as the new enthusiasts for art collecting. New collectors like Vasily Kokorev and Pavel Tretyakov gave active support to the Russian art school. At the end of the 19th century the dynasties of Morozovs, Shchukins and other captains of industry crossed over to the Russian school and combined their interest in artists who were their countrymen with their new passion for the art of the Impressionists and their followers, as well as the European avant-garde. Canvases by Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso entered their collections. After the 1917 Revolution, the imperial collections and the majority of private collections were nationalized. Then, beginning in 1924, they were dispersed among Soviet museums, including the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Hermitage, and the State Russian Museum. Many masterpieces were sold abroad in the 1930’s by Stalin’s government. This publication is addressed to a broad circle of readers. It has been translated into English and French and is published in New York by the The Vendome Press. |
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