A secluded corner: how Russia's main museum came to be
On December 5, 1764, the Hermitage was founded - a museum that became a symbol of Russia, Russian and world culture. How it was, remembered "Izvestia".
Gallery in the palace
The magnificent Winter Palace began to be built according to the project of Bartolomeo Rastrelli in the days of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Everything there was arranged to the taste of Peter's daughter, an admirer of opulent baroque. But, alas, she did not have time to live in her new residence. The queen did not live to see the end of construction, and the work was already accepted by Peter III, her hapless heir. But the palace really blossomed after his overthrow. Under Catherine II, the Winter Palace became the center of political and cultural life - receptions were held there, treasures and curiosities belonging to the Empress were stored there. Performances were applauded and negotiations were conducted there.
In the spacious palace halls Catherine found a place for her gallery of paintings. The empress acquired the first exhibits for it from the Prussian merchant Johann Gotskovsky two years after her accession to the throne. Gotzkowski collected the collection for Frederick II, but because of the Seven Years' War, which led Prussia to financial ruin, the king bought only a few paintings.
Collection of paintings by Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowski in the Hermitage. 1764
As a result, Gotskovsky managed to get into debt, and for the paintings had to hastily look for a new buyer. And then he was contacted by Russian diplomats. It is believed that Catherine by this step wanted to demonstrate that Russia still won the Seven Years' War.
In 1764, a collection of 317 paintings by Flemish, Dutch and Italian artists was brought to Russia. Among them stood out works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Halsa. In the same year, the Empress ordered the addition of a pavilion "for solitude" to the Winter Palace, which she called the Hermitage (from the French ermitage - a secluded corner, desert, hermit's dwelling). Evenings were organized there for a narrow circle of Catherine's close associates. At first, even servants were not allowed to attend Hermitage meetings: everything necessary was delivered with the help of a rare curiosity - a mechanical elevator.
Sculpture "Crouching Boy" by Italian sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti. 1955
The day of the museum's foundation was set as the Feast of St. Catherine - November 24, Old Style (December 7). The Empress spent evenings in the Hermitage among books, sculptures and paintings. She rested her soul - and at the same time in a relaxed atmosphere, sometimes over a game of cards, resolved state issues.
Soon a new building - the Great (Old) Hermitage - was built for the growing art collection, which the Empress considered it her duty to replenish, while the former building was renamed the Small Hermitage. She spared no money to replenish the gallery. Among Catherine's new acquisitions were paintings by Titian and Raphael, sculptures by Michelangelo.
Hunting for masterpieces
Catherine organized a real multi-year hunt for masterpieces of world art of all eras. The best diplomats of Catherine's time knew this. In 1767, the Russian ambassador to France Dmitry Golitsyn, who had a good understanding of painting, bought a painting by Rembrandt "The Return of the Prodigal Son". Not inferior to Golitsyn Russian envoy in Dresden Prince Andrei Beloselsky. He managed to negotiate the purchase of the collection of the Saxon minister Count Heinrich von Brühl, known throughout Europe, who had collected 600 unique prints and paintings. Among the masterpieces delivered to the Empress from Saxony are paintings by Rembrandt ("Portrait of a Scientist" and "Portrait of an Old Man in Red"), Rubens ("Perseus and Andromeda"), Poussin ("Deposition from the Cross") and Watteau ("A Difficult Proposal").
Rembrandt's painting Portrait of an Old Man in Red. 1965
There were also tragic failures. In 1771 in the Gulf of Finland, just a little bit before reaching the destination, sank ship with paintings purchased by Golitsyn in Holland. Hundreds of paintings were lost. It happened that the Empress was deceived, sold her fakes. And yet she managed to collect a unique gallery.
The brilliant prince of Tauris - Grigory Potemkin made his contribution to the collection. In 1777, he bought as a gift to Catherine made in London automatic gold watch "Peacock". But on the way to Russia, the clock fell into disrepair. Potemkin commissioned a Russian craftsman, Ivan Kulibin, to fix the clever mechanism. He disassembled the clock, understood its structure, repaired and reassembled it, adding some details. The reviving Peacock, which flapped its wings and fluffed its tail, created a real sensation at court. It became one of the symbols of the Hermitage. And after Potemkin's death, Catherine bought his collection of paintings.
Noble foreigners, connoisseurs of art, who visited the North Pallada, said that she hides from prying eyes one of the richest collections in Europe. Catherine ironized that her treasures were enjoyed only by herself and the palace mice.
Denis Diderot criticized the empress, who during the Russo-Turkish war could not refrain from expensive art purchases. And yet the same Diderot bought for Catherine paintings from the famous collection of Joseph-Antoine Crozet and Baron de Thiers. And this - and "Holy Family" Raphael, and "Judith" Giorgione, and "Danai" Titian.
The Empress believed that Russia should have the world's best art gallery. And did not count money when it came to investing in the future. After all, masterpieces do not age.
The treasury is replenished
Catherine the Great's grandchildren continued her endeavor. At the time of Alexander I, Dominique Vivant-Denon, director of the Louvre in Paris, contributed to the fact that Caravaggio's painting "A Young Man with a Ribbon" was added to the Hermitage collection. Alexander I also enriched the collection with such a masterpiece as the Gonzaga cameo. It was created in the III century BC by a master from Alexandria - it is a ceremonial portrait of Egyptian kings, brother and sister. For the first time this cameo was described in the list of the collection of the Dukes of Gonzaga - hence its name. Then Napoleon took possession of this masterpiece - and gave the cameo to Josephine Beauharnais. In 1814, in Paris, Alexander I paid a visit to Napoleon's favorite woman and guaranteed her safety. In gratitude, she presented the cameo to the Russian Tsar.
But the Hermitage is not only the art of distant eras and continents. It is the most complete collection of Russian historical painting, our artistic chronicle. Of particular interest is the battalistics, reflecting the victories of Peter the Great and Alexander Menshikov, Peter Rumyantsev, Alexander Suvorov, Peter Bagration....
War Gallery of 1812 in the Hermitage Museum
In 1826 the War Gallery of 1812 was opened, immortalizing the glorious Russian heroes of the Napoleonic Wars. We owe its creation to the English romantic portraitist George Dawe. In Russia he was called Yegor Filippovich. He became the court painter of Nicholas I. And together with his pupils - Vasily Golike and Alexander Polyakov - he created 332 portraits of Russian generals who traveled with their armies from Moscow to Paris. Pushkin, who worked in the Hermitage library, wrote about this gallery:
The Russian tsar has a chamber in his palaces:
It is not rich in gold, not in velvet;
It is not where the diamond of the crown is kept behind the glass;
But from top to bottom, all the way round,
With his free and broad brush
It was painted by a quick-footed artist.
There are no country nymphs, no virgin madonnas,
No fauns with bowls, no full-breasted wives,
No dances, no hunts, - but all cloaks, yes swords,
Yes faces full of warlike courage.
In 1835, a rich deposit of malachite was discovered in the Ural mines. When a fire broke out in the Winter Palace, industrialists donated two tons of semi-precious stones to rebuild the imperial residence. Nowadays, the Malachite Drawing Room, a hall belonging to the private quarters of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, wife of Nicholas I, designed by Alexei Bryullov, is a constant delight for visitors to the Hermitage.
Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Madonna and Child". 1983
In the 19th century, the Hermitage collected a unique collection of Egyptian art. Its pride is a statue of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet. It was brought to St. Petersburg by Avraham Norov, a traveler, hero of the War of 1812, Minister of Public Education. He found the statue among the ruins of an ancient temple and bought it from the Egyptian government. The statue of Pharaoh Amenemhet III invariably attracts the attention of all visitors to the Egyptian Hall.
The imperial collection was opened to the public in 1852, by decree of Catherine's grandson Nicholas I, when the third - the New - Hermitage was built to accommodate the growing exposition. The first guests of the museum were received ceremoniously: after a ballet performance they got acquainted with the exposition and then went to a festive dinner.
The treasury was replenished. Among the gems of the Hermitage are two paintings by the great Leonardo da Vinci. In 1864, Duke Antonio Litta approached the Russian Imperial Museum with a proposal to buy several paintings from the family collection. The director of the Hermitage, Stepan Gedeonov, traveled to Italy. Among the paintings he purchased from the Duke was the "Madonna and Child" by Leonardo. It is more often called "Madonna Litta" in honor of its longtime owners. In Russia, it was restored, translated from board to canvas. Another Leonardo - "Madonna with a Flower" - was acquired in Italy by Alexei Korsakov, director of the Mining School. Then it was owned by the Astrakhan merchants Sapozhnikovs, the daughter of one of whom married the architect Leontius Benois. In 1914, Hermitage Director Dmitry Tolstoy secured the purchase of this masterpiece with the support of Nicholas II.
Hermitage forever
Today, the State Hermitage is one of the largest and most visited museums in the world. After 1917, its collection was augmented by the collections of the Academy of Arts and St. Petersburg's Museum of New Western Art. Previously, the Hermitage collection was limited to works by old masters who created no later than the middle of the 19th century. Now, in the best museum in Russia, one can get acquainted with the art of the Impressionists and the experiments of Pablo Picasso and Kazimir Malevich. During the Leningrad blockade, most of the Hermitage collection was evacuated to Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). But even in Leningrad the museum worked, exhibitions were held there, and people gathered in the Hermitage halls to listen to lectures about art. Day and night, museum workers together with firemen were on duty on the palace roofs.
The modern Hermitage is more than a museum. Rather, it is a whole world into which one wants to immerse oneself. As Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage, says, "The museum is the best place for dialog of cultures. The mirror of each culture reflects someone else's perception of themselves, and that is why the museum reflects the world that was, but real people are also reflected in it".
The author is Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Historian magazine
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
