Visit to Houghton. Walpole Masterpieces from the Hermitage of Catherine the Great

On March 27, 2013, the State Hermitage Museum hosted a press conference on the upcoming an exhibit entitled Visit to Houghton. Walpole Masterpieces from the Hermitage of Catherine the Great. The exhibit will be presented from May 17 to September 29, 2013 In Houghton Hall, Norfolk County, Great Britain. The exposition Includes more than 40 paintings from the collection of the Hermitage. Exposition Is complemented by canvases from the collection of the Tsarskoe Selo State Museum-Reserve; the Pavlovsk State Museum-Reserve; the A.S. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; the National Gallery, Washington; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the Museum of Victoria and Alberta, London; and others.

This exhibit Is timed to coincide with the 250-year anniversary of the State Hermitage Museum, which will be celebrated In 2014.

The speakers at the press conference Included:

Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, the General Director of the State Hermitage Museum, Lord Cholmondeley, the present owner of Houghton Hall. The curators of the exhibits responded to journalists’ questions: Tatiana Borisovna Bushmina, the Senior Scientific Employee of the Department of Western European Fine Art of the State Hermitage Museum, and Doctor Thierry Morel, Art Historian, Great Britain.

The exhibit was organized with the support of an organization that has been the Hermitage’s partner and sponsor for many years - BP, represented by Peter Charov, the Vice-President of BP In Russia. The exhibit was also organized with the support of Oracle Capital Group, Christie’s, HSBC and Bentley.

The acquisition of the Walpole collection In 1779, which contemporaries called “the most celebrated In England”, was an extremely Important event  In the history of the Hermitage; the Imperial gallery significantly expanded with the works of 17th century European masters.

The founder of the art gallery, Robert Walpole, the first Earl of Orford (1676-1745), held the position of First Prime Minister of Britain In the time of the rule of Kings George I and George II. After becoming a member of Parliament In 1701 at the age of 25, he became Prime Minister In 1721, and remained In that position until his retirement In 1742, but remained a member of the House of Lords for life. As a remarkable statesman, Robert Walpole was one of the main European collectors of paintings, and his collection reflected the artistic taste of an early 18th century English collector. These numerous artistic treasures were Initially held In the Prime Minister’s London homes, Include his official residence on Downing Street. When he left his position, Sir Robert placed the best of his collection  In Houghton Hall, the suburban estate where he was born, located In the County of Norfolk.

Rebuilt In the Palladian style based on a design by leading English architects Colin Campbell and James Gibbs, the house was specially designed to host a collection of paintings. The Interiors and finishing, created by William Kent, have survived to this day.

The youngest son of Robert Walpole, the writer Horace Walpole (1717-1797), felt that It was his life’s work to preserve his father’s collection for the country; In 1752 he published a full catalogue of the collection, adding length commentary. However, the difficult financial position of his heirs played a fateful rule In the fate of the collection. In the late 1778, a direct descendent grandchild, burdened with his grandfather’s debts, George Walpole, offered his gallery for sale to the Russian Empresses Catherine II. The Russian envoy to London, A.S. Musin-Pushkin, Informing the Empress about this, wrote “the Minister used all of the opportunities presented by his long rule to make It [the gallery] as wonderful as It  Is full. His grandson Lord Orford has taken on the duty of bringing It  In full or In part to the feet of Your Imperial Majesty. In the opinion of all of the experts, It Is worthy to belong to the greatest of sovereigns”.

The news of George’s Intention to sell the collction of his grandfather Robert Walpole to the Russian Empress provoked a tremendous scandal In English society. The members of the British Parliament proposed the Idea of acquiring “one of the most wonderful collection In Europe” and the creation of a National Gallery on that basis. However, the members of Parliament were not able to bring their Idea to life, and In 1779, the highest order came from Catherine II to buy the collection. 204 paintings (the entire collection, with the exception of family portraits and sculptures) were sold for the sum of 40,555 pounds sterling. Packed Into boxes, the paintings arrived In Petersburg In autumn of 1779 “on two of the finest ships” protected by a frigate.

Along with the Walpole collection, extremely famous, large-scale work by 17th century masters entered the Imperial Gallery of the Hermitage. The works from the Flemish school Included: The Feast In the House of Simon the Pharisee, Landscape with Wagoners and Rubens sketches of triumphal arches, Madonna of the Partridges and all of Van Dyke “English”portraits, four Stalls and Concert of Birds by Snyders, Kitchen by David Teniers the Younger. The department of  Italian Baroque was especially enriched: The Fathers of the Church Disputing the Christian Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception by Guido Reni, The Prodigal Son, Democritus and Protagoras, Portrait of Man by Salvatore Rosa, The Dream of Young Bacchus, The Judgment of Paris and The Smithy of Vulcan by Luca Giordano. A separate area In Houghton Hall was set aside for the paintings of Carlo Maratti, where Portrait of Pope Clement IX had a place of honor.

Among the Italian paintings, It Is necessary to name The Immaculate Conception and The Crucifixion of Christ by Murillo, the French part was expanded by the landscapes of Claude Lorraine and the paintings of Poussin, Including The Holy Family with Saints Elisabeth and John the Baptist, and the Dutch part by Rembrandt’s Abraham’s Sacrifice.  In addition to paintings by celebrated European masters, the Walpole collection  Included paintings by English artists that offer a view of the sources and emergence of the national school of painting: portraits of the sculptor Grinling Gibbons and the great English philosopher John Locke by Godfrey Kneller.

Catherine II, by the way, like Robert Walpole, understood that assembling art collections Is a matter of state Important, which Increases a country’s authority and International prestige. Thanks to the zeal of knowledge of her envoys and her own passion for collecting since her ascension to the throne In 1762, the Empress successfully acquired some of the most  Important European collections.

The purchase of the Walpole gallery was just as significant for the formation of the portrait gallery of the Hermitage as the acquisition of the Crozat collection In Paris In 1772. The Russian art historian V.F. Levinson-Lessing, the author of a famous study on the history of the Hermitage, called the acquisition of Lord Walpole “one of the most Important events In the life of the Hermitage”.

The upcoming exhibit offers a unique opportunity to see part of the famous British collection In the collector’s homeland. In 2002, “the Hermitage Rooms In Summerset House” exhibit center In London, the exhibit “Devotion, painting and politics: masterpieces from the Walpole Collection In the Hermitage” was held, at which 34 paintings were presented. The Robert Walpole collection, more than 230 years later, will once again be presented  In Its original surroundings In Houghton Hall, now belonging to the marquis Cholmondeley, a direct descendent of Robert Walpole.

Today the Hermitage holds 126 paintings from the Walpole collection. 15 paintings are located In Moscow museums, 21 In various museums In Russia and Ukraine, 6 paintings were sold abroad In the 1930s, some of the paintings, which were held In museums In the suburbs of Petersburg, were lost during the German occupation during the Great Patriotic War. The fate of 36 paintings from the collection of the British collector remains unknown to this day. A portrait of George I by G. Kneller and George Button, held In a palace  In Gatchina, a suburb of Saint Petersburg, and counted among the missing  Items was returned to Russia by the German government In 2002.