Opening of the exhibition Hermitage - Imperial museum. Romanovs as Tsars-Collectors in the Pinacotheca of Paris

On 25 January 2011 an exhibition Hermitage - Imperial museum. Romanovs as Tsars-Collectors, including more than seventy works of painting, graphics and sculpture, was opened in Paris Pinacotheca. The exhibition enable viewers to discover masterpieces of the picture gallery of the renowned St Petersburg museum telling about the main stages of the history of collecting in Russia related to the activity of tsars from the Romanovs dynasty. The collecting activity of Peter the Great is presented mainly by paintings of the Dutch and Flemish school which the tsar preferred after visiting Holland. Here, first of all, it is worth noting Rembrandt’s David and Jonathan, the first work by the great artist to appear in Russia, as well as Jan Steen’s Marriage Contract and Ferry Boat by Rembrandt’s student Jan Victors. The tsar was also interested in the Italian school, which is attested by The Entombment by Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi), attributed in the early 18th century to Raffaello, the first recognized masterpiece of Italian Renaissance painting in Russia.

Catherine II not only founded the Hermitage as the museum in 1764 but also laid the foundations for its picture gallery. Displayed at the exhibition are paintings purchased in Paris by the tsarina’s agents, including Denis Diderot and prince Dmitry Golitsin: Self-Portrait by Paolo Veronese, Arrival in Leon and Portrait of George Gage by Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of a Man by Rembrandt Harmensz Van Rijn, Cupids Hunting and Venus, Faun and Putti by Nicolas Poussin, as well as The Patient and the Doctor by Gabriel Metsu. Paintings were purchased from famous collectors such as Crosa de Tierra, Julienne, Baudouin, etc. A group within this section is represented by contemporary painters Jean Baptist Greuze (Portrait of a Young Man), Jean Baptist-Simon Chardin (Still Life with Attributes of the Arts), E'lisabeth-Louise Vige'e-Le Brun (Portrait of Pavel's Daughters Alexandra and Elena) and others. Drawings and water color paintings of Charles Louis Clerisseau with Rome's views and architectural fantasies contribute to this period as well.

The reign of Alexander I fell within long-term Napoleonic wars. One of their results was the appearance on the art market of Europe of numerous paintings by Spanish artists, including of the 17th century – the Golden Age of Spanish painting. Among the paintings purchased under Alexander I prevail works by Spanish artists, including masterpieces such as Diego Velasquez’s Portrait of Olivares and Bartolome Esteban Murillo’s The Annunciation. Three paintings of artists contemporary to the tsar (Nicolas-Antoine Tonet, Francois Granet and Natale Schiavone) characterize his personal taste. After Catherine II, Nicholas I made probably the greatest contribution into the development of the Hermitage by constructing a building of the New Hermitage opened in 1852 as the first Public Imperial Museum. The Emperor paid much attention to replenishing the museum collections, in particular, by purchasing paintings of Italian Renaissance artists (Portrait of an Old Man by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Christ the Almighty by Titian, Miracle of the Loaves and Fish by Francesco Bassano, etc). Special interest in this context presents a series of water color views of the New Hermitage halls performed with amazing accuracy and precision by Eduard Hau, Luigi Premazzi and Konstantin Ukhtomsky.

The exhibition also features marble portrait busts of four monarchs-collectors.

The exhibition Hermitage - Imperial museum. Romanovs as Tsars-Collectors will be open in Paris until 29 May 2011.

The exhibition curator is S. Androsov, Head of the Department of Western European Fine Art of the State Hermitage, Ph. D. in art history.

More

Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage, and Marc Restellini, Director of the Pinacotheca of Paris, at the opening

Sergey Androsov, Curator of the exhibition

View of the exposition

Before opening