Peter the Great - Reign:
1689-1725
1697-98 – First trip abroad of a Russian tsar. Peter discovers
Western Europe and its civilization. Peter visits museums, libraries and art
collections in Amsterdam and Dresden. He takes lessons on printmaking in
Holland and increasingly assumes the posture of the enlightened European monarch.
1707– In Poland and the Baltic
countries during the Swedish wars he buys local art collections and has them
sent to St. Petersburg. He also buys sculptures though they are forbidden by
the Orthodox church.
1716 – Second trip to Europe. The tsar visits Poland,
Germany, Holland, Denmark and France. Russian agents and diplomats abroad are
instructed to look out for works of art for purchase.
1717 – 32 statues and 12 busts, many copies in lead of the
Versailles garden sculpture, arrive in Petersburg for the royal gardens. They
do not however survive long the rigors of the Russian winters. Most of the paintings
purchased for Peter are of the Dutch and Flemish schools, though 70 Italian
paintings are also purchased by the Russian diplomat Beklemichev in Venice in
1722.
1722 – Peter orders the
purchase from his widow of the collection of the Dutch merchant Hauptman in
Vologda.
Peter will buy close
to 400 works of art altogether most of which are placed in the palace of
Peterhof where they will suffer greatly from humidity.
Some are today housed in the Hermitage.
Catherine II the Great -
Reign: 1762-1796
1764
– Catherine orders the construction of the first (Small) Hermitage to house her art collections
next to the Winter palace in St Petersburg. It will be completed in 1775. A
second Hermitage (the Old) is launched in 1774 and finished in 1787. The
renowned collection of the Berlin merchant Johan Ernst Gotskowsky is given to
Russia as part of the Prussian war debt. Catherine’s policy is to create a
great encyclopedic art collection in
her capital. She declares herself an admirer of the great figures of the Enlightenment,
Voltaire and Montesquieu and she corresponds with the French philosophers
Diderot and Grimm. They in turn will name her the “Semiramis of the North”.
1767 – Catherine’s
ambassador at the court of Versailles Prince Golitsyn, one of the great,
cultivated cosmopolitan figures of the age, will also be instrumental in
purchasing works on the Paris art market and commissioning original works from
French painters and sculptors. Purchase of works from the posthumous sale of
the renowned collection of Jean de
Julienne collector and friend of Antoine Watteau.
1768 – Purchase of the
collection of the Austrian ambassador to the south Netherlands, Carl Philippe
Cobentzl. It is composed of Dutch and Flemish pictures but also 4000 drawings
which will become the foundation for the Hermitage drawing collection.
1770 – Purchase (for 460
000 livres) of the Pierre Crozat
collection probably the greatest private French art collection, housed on
the Place Vendôme, from the heir of the famous banker. Diderot and the Genevois
collector Tronchin negotiate this purchase on behalf of Catherine. The
collection contains 2 Rembrandts, works by Veronese, Van Dyck, Giorgione,
Raphael, Titian, Fetti, Poussin, Lancret and Greuze. Diderot will also be responsible for the purchase of pictures from
more prestigious French collections including that of the duc de Choiseul
(French minister of foreign affairs and political rival of Catherine) in 1772,
Gaignat (1769), de Gagny (1776-77), de Boisset (1777) and Prince de Conti
(1777). Catherine will also purchase the private libraries of Voltaire and
Diderot. She spent hours overlooking the arrangement of pictures and objects in
the Hermitage galleries.
1771 – An entire shipment of
pictures from the Dutch Braamkamp collection sinks in the Baltic. “We have only
lost 60 000 ducats” declares Catherine disdainfully.
1779 – Having virtually filled her
museum Catherine’s purchases slow down. Two last collections, that of Sir
Robert Walpole (1779 – included Reni, Giordano, Van Dyck and Rubens) and count
Baudoin (1781) will be purchased in her later years. By the end of her reign
the Hermitage boasted nearly 4000
paintings. Catherine is by far the greatest of the Romanov collectors.
Alexander I - Reign: 1801-1825
1808 – Franz Labensky chief curator
of the Hermitage is sent to Paris to purchase pictures. He will collaborate
with Vivant-Denon Napoleon’s famous
first director of the Louvre museum. Vivant-Denon will send 40 pictures
(including Caravaggio’s Lute Player)
to Russia.
1814
– Alexander visits the famous William Coeswelt
collection in Amsterdam, known for its Spanish
paintings, and immediately orders its purchase. The Spanish resistance to
Napoleon had rendered that country particularly sympathetic to the Russians.
The result is that Alexander will create the first great Spanish art collection
outside Spain. In the same year Alexander meets the former empress Josephine in her château of Malmaison
near Paris. Shortly after her death, he discreetly negotiates the purchase of
38 works from her private collection originally looted from abroad by the
Napoleonic armies. These include Canova, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Metsu. The
price is high: 940 000 francs. Alexander will also interest himself in
engravings and architectural drawings. Under his reign the Hermitage museum
will be reorganized in a more scholarly fashion and the first engravings of its
famous pictures will be published.
Nicholas I - Reign: 1825-1855
1826
– Nicholas loves art and likes painting military
scenes in landscapes specially prepared for him by professional painters. He
orders the purchase of the collection of Michael Miradovich, governor of St
Petersburg.
1829
– Buys the collection of Hortense de Beauharnais,
Josephine’s daughter.
1831
– Purchase via the Russian ambassador in Paris, Pozzo
di Borgo, of the collection of Manuel
Godoy, former prime minister of Spain (includes works by Lotto, Honthorst,
Murillo).
1837 – A fire destroys entirely the
Winter palace and nearly spreads to the neighboring Hermitage. Nicholas orders
the rebuilding of the palace which will be accomplished in and extraordinarily
short time. The new palace is inaugurated in 1839. This disaster undoubtedly
inspires him to also build a new museum for his art collections. This disaster
undoubtedly inspires him to also build a new museum for his art collections.
1842 – Beginning of the New Hermitage designed by the Bavarian
architect Leo von Klenze, architect of the famous Glyptothek and Pinacothek of
Munich.
1845 – Extended trip to
Italy. Nicholas visits Rome, Naples, Florence and Venice. He commissions
marbles from Italian sculptors (Tenerani, Bienaimé, Rinaldi) constituting an
important neoclassical collection for the Hermitage.
1850 – The purchase
without previous examination of the Barbarigo collection, one of the oldest in
Venice, proves a great disappointment. Most of the pictures turn out to be in a
terrible state of conservation and many are resold in 1855. A number works by
Titian, Bassano and Palma are nevertheless kept.
1852 – Purchase of the
Spanish collection of the Napoleonic Marshall Soult. Inauguration of the New
Hermitage museum.
