Furniture Rarities of the Demidov Family. History and Restoration

In 2021, at an auction in Paris, the collector Mikhail Suslov bought a marquetry chest-of-drawers in the Rococo style that came from Pratolino, the former Italian estate of the Demidov family. That lot formed a matching pair with a piece of furniture in the State Hermitage collection. The Hermitage example had, however, come down to the present with considerable losses that distorted its initial appearance. Thanks to the efforts of the Hermitage’s restorers, the original look of the museum item has been recreated using the chest-of-drawers from Pratolino as a model. The exhibition features not only both these articles of furniture that once belonged to the Demidovs, a prominent family of wealthy industrialists, but also portraits of members of that dynasty associated with the history of the pair. Visitors will also be able to see copper articles in the Rococo style produced by their foundries at Nizhny Tagil in the Urals in the third quarter of the 18th century.

The exhibition curator is Natalia Yuryevna Guseva, Candidate of Art Studies, Deputy Head of the State Hermitage’s Department of the History of Russian Culture, keeper of the collection of Russian furniture.

The exhibition can be visited until 12 May 2024 by all holders of entry tickets to the Main Museum Complex.

More about the exhibition

The chest-of-drawers from the Hermitage collection was finished in the marquetry technique, inlaid with ivory and decorated with the coat-of-arms of Siberia and the Empress’s monogram EII beneath a crown. It was made in Saint Petersburg in the 1760s–70s to a commission from Nikita Akinfiyevich Demidov, a leading industrialist who owned metal-producing enterprises in Siberia (the territory around the Urals, where the majority of his foundries were located, was considered part of the province of Siberia until 1782). Its companion piece from Pratolino has a similar shape to its body, figurative and ornamental marquetry compositions, as well as figured metal decorative plates. However, in the case of the chest-of-drawers from the Hermitage collection the last are all made of gilded copper, while those on its “mate” are silver. The symbolism employed in the marquetry on the tops of the chests-of-drawers and their grand appearance indicate that these exceptional furniture pieces were made as a special gift to Empress Catherine II. For some reason, though, that presentation never took place.

For a long time, the historical provenance of the museum item was unknown, before the publication of a Sotheby’s auction catalogue in April 1969 that included hereditary possessions of the Demidovs from the Villa di Pratolino in Italy provided grounds for connecting it with the name of that prominent family of Russian industrialists. The catalogue included a photograph of the chest-of-drawers, which was almost a complete match for the Hermitage piece, apart from the silver, rather than gilt, elements.

While the marquetry chest-of-drawers from Pratolino had retained its original appearance, it emerged that even before the 1917 revolution its companion in the Hermitage had had its “aprons” and curved legs sawn off, the relief mounts removed from its corners and the figured handles from the drawers. Those were replaced with crude late substitutes. The inlay-work medallion on the top of the chest-of-drawers had given way to a zinc one bearing some simple engraving.

For almost half a century after the 1969 auction, the chest-of-drawers from Pratolino remained abroad, and it was only in 2021 that the piece was acquired by Mikhail Suslov, Vice-President of the International Confederation of Russian Collectors, Antiquarians and Art Dealers. With his support, the electrotype technique was used to produce exact copies of the missing gilded copper elements for the Hermitage chest-of-drawers from the silver originals.

After painstakingly studying and comparing both pieces of furniture, the Hermitage’s specialists devised an approach to recreating the original appearance of this rare item from the time of Catherine the Great. All the planned stages in the work were carried out in the Laboratory for the Scientific Restoration of Furniture (headed by Vladimir Gradov), part of the Department of Scientific Restoration and Conservation (headed by Tatiana Baranova). The work was mainly performed by Andrei Kashcheyev, an artist-restorer of the highest category. Using templates taken from the companion piece, he reproduced the lost aprons at the bottom of the body and the Rococo legs. After special preparation, a fresh coating of shellac varnish was applied to the body of the chest-of-drawers. The surviving authentic metal elements were thoroughly cleaned, and the new gilded ones attached in their places. For the upper surface of the piece, Boris Kuznetsov, an artist-restorer of the 2nd category, produced a marquetry medallion containing the monogram EII.

In the exhibition at the Hermitage, both chests-of-drawers will be on show together for the first time since they were “separated” in the mid-19th century. The display includes portraits of Nikita Demidov’s heirs who were involved in the subsequent history of this unique pair of items, as well as items from the foundries of Nizhny Tagil bearing the mark SIBIR in Latin letters and elements of state symbolism similar to the decorative motifs on the chests-of-drawers.

The State Hermitage is preparing a scholarly publication (2024) covering the materials in the exhibition. The author is Natalia Guseva.