A Collector's Taste. Dutch Paintings of the 16th - 17th Centuries from the Collection of P.P. Semenov-Tian-Shansky

On 20 October 2006, the Hermitage's third exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of the birth of Rembrandt opened in the Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace.This presents works from the collection of P.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, the celebrated Russian traveler, geographer and explorer of Central Asia.

The exhibition includes works from three Northern schools (the Low Countries, Dutch and Flemish): more than 120 works from the collections of the State Hermitage, the State Russian Museum and the A.S. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Several of the works are offered for public viewing for the first time. A special section of the exhibition is devoted to iconographic materials, as well as rare documents and photographs telling about the way this extraordinary Russian collector went about assembling his collection.

The name of the outstanding scholar and statesman Pyotr Petrovich Semenov-Tyan-Shansky (1827–1914) has enjoyed well-earned glory. However, his activity as collector was rather less known to the public. A love for the work of the great Dutchman was the defining passion of this Russian collector of the "age of Rembrandt." Towards the end of the scholar's life, his collection contained more than 700 Dutch and Flemish paintings. This huge collection was sold by the owner to the Imperial Hermitage and became the last major addition to the museum before the outbreak of the First World War.

The earliest purchases in the collection open with Pieter Lastman's Annunciation. The exhibition also presents the Portrait of a Child as Cupid by Willem van Honthorst, St Martin at the Gates of Amiens by J.K. Droochsloot, and two matched landscapes by Willem Dubois. In the 1870s such important works came into the collection as An Old Woman Counting Coins by Mathhias Stomer, The Concert by Herman van Aldewerelt, the Torment of St Laurentius by V. de Porter, the grisaille Joseph in Egypt by D. Tivart, and Ruth and Boaz by Barent Fabritius

Following the death of the collector in 1914, a large exhibition entitled In Memory of Peter Petrovich Semenov-Tyan-Shansky opened in the Hermitage. The collector's lifelong objective of making an addition to the celebrated Hermitage gallery was fulfilled. At the end of the 1920s, on orders from the Soviet Government dozens of paintings were transferred from the Hermitage to other museums around the country. Later there followed the instructions on turning over exhibits to the office of the state trading company Antikvariat for sale at auction in Europe. However, the Hermitage succeeded in keeping the core collection on its walls.

The curator of the exhibition and author of the scholarly illustrated catalogue is Irina Sokolova, leading researcher of the State Hermitage's Department of Western European Art.

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The exhibition catalogue

Irina Sokolova, curator of the exhibition

At the opening of the exhibition

At the exhibition