How a visit to the Hermitage turned the merchant's fate upside down: Little-known facts from the history of the Tretyakov Gallery

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It is unlikely that we could contemplate and admire the masterpieces of Russian painting today, if not for the event that happened a little more than 125 years ago. Namely, in the summer of 1892, the merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov presented to Muscovites the most valuable thing he had - his life's work - a collection of works of Russian art, which he had been collecting for almost 40 years.

Coming from a famous merchant family, Pavel Tretyakov (1832-1898) was not only a successful entrepreneur, but also a connoisseur of fine art, for which he had a special flair. Relying only on his artistic taste, he was able to distinguish true art from one-day paintings.

Collecting his collection, he was not chasing contemporary works and fashionable authors, he was not interested in technique and pretentious manner. Sometimes he bought paintings in spite of the criticism of the public and art critics. And it was almost impossible to break Tretyakov's will. Convinced that his art collection would last for centuries, he carefully approached each of his choices. So at that time, his unprofessional opinion was opposed to the preferences of the whole Academy of Arts.

In each work, he first of all looked for sincerity and truthfulness and, acquiring pictures, he listened only to his heart. Once ordering a landscape for Goravsky, the collector wrote to the painter:

You will be surprised, but at one time Pavel Tretyakov did not want to acquire the paintings "Girl with Peaches" by Valentin Serov and "Portrait of an Unknown" by Ivan Kramskoy into his collection, rejecting them because of excessive "prettiness". It was after his death that these paintings will become the property of the Tretyakov Gallery.

The date of foundation of the Tretyakov collection is considered to be May 22, 1856, when Pavel Tretyakov first acquired two works of Russian artists - "Temptation" by Nikolai Schilder and "Skirmish with Finnish smugglers" by Vasily Khudyakov. At that time, Pavel Mikhailovich was only 24 years old, but he already knew for sure that a passion for art was with him for life.

On the way to a dream

Pavel was the eldest son of Mikhail Zakharovich Tretyakov, the owner of a flax spinning and weaving factory in Kostroma and the owner of five shops in the Old Trading Rows on Ilyinka. He was very young when their father died. And from the age of 14, the teenager had to take over all his father's affairs in order to support a large family. After all, besides him, the mother still had four children.

Pavel, fortunately, turned out to be a successful entrepreneur: the manufactory of their family became one of the best in the country. His younger brother Sergei also played a huge role in the common cause, supporting Pavel in all his endeavors: from business to creating a gallery.

And it all started when Pavel, a 20-year-old boy, visited the Hermitage after visiting St. Petersburg, which greatly impressed the young Tretyakov. On his next trip, he met Fyodor Pryanishnikov, the owner of an impressive collection of Russian painting. Seeing his collection, Tretyakov caught fire with a dream and diligently engaged in self-education, collected literature on art, visited all exhibitions and read reviews. And besides, he began to take the first steps in collecting. Pavel, while still a teenager, often liked to visit the Sukharevsky market, where there were rubble of all sorts of things. And in 1854-55, in the same market, he acquired 20 canvases by old Dutch masters. Well, as it turned out later, some of the purchased paintings turned out to be fakes.

And from that time on, Tretyakov vowed to buy antique works: And he began to collect works only by Russian masters. However, there were exceptions, when a collector acquired works by departed masters. But these were rare cases when he was one hundred percent sure of the authenticity of the painting.

Eleven years after the first acquisitions, the Tretyakov gallery had more than a thousand paintings, almost five hundred drawings and a dozen sculptures. Young artists went there to gain experience and inspiration, and already venerable painters sought friendship and patronage of Tretyakov.

And what is remarkable, already at the age of 27, going on a trip abroad, Pavel Mikhailovich made his first testament:. The key word is "public": the patron considered it his mission to make art accessible to both the wealthy and ordinary people.

In the summer of 1892, he donated his precious brainchild to the city of Moscow. A year later, the Tretyakov Gallery was officially opened, which became the first public museum in Russia.

Who knows where you will find, where you will lose

Unfortunately, Tretyakov did not always have the opportunity to purchase the canvas of this or that artist he liked. Competition in the Russian art market has always existed, and some of the works had to be seriously fought for.

So, for example, the painting "Christ and the Sinner" (1888, RM) by Vasily Polenov from the collector was "intercepted" by Alexander III, however, like "Zaporozhtsev" (1890, RM) by Ilya Repin. And this at a time when Tretyakov was already negotiating with the painters to buy these paintings. Repin had to write an author's copy for Tretyakov, which after the revolution ended up in the Kharkov Art Museum.

And the collector during his lifetime did not get the painting by Vasily Perov "Seeing the Dead" (1865, State Tretyakov Gallery), which he loved very much, but after the nationalization of the collections, it still ended up in his gallery.

One of the most popular paintings in the gallery's collection is "Morning in a Pine Forest" by Ivan Shishkin, where a bear with cubs, as many remember, was painted by Konstantin Savitsky. The creators of the canvas shared a fee of four thousand rubles among themselves and signed the painting with two names. However, having received a painting with double authorship, Tretyakov personally erased Savitsky's name with turpentine, although a trace of the signature can still be seen in the lower right corner of the canvas. Tretyakov considered that the contribution to the work of Ivan Shishkin was immeasurably greater and Savitsky had to agree with this.

Another funny incident from the life of Mikhail Nesterov, who commented on him in this way: “My father announced to me long ago that all my medals and titles would not convince him that I was a“ready artist”until my painting was in the gallery of Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov …”And so it happened… Nowadays, entire exhibitions devoted to the artist's work from time to time open at the Tretyakov Gallery.

Portraits are a collector's weakness

It is a well-known fact that Tretyakov especially valued portraiture, so at the end of 1860 Tretyakov decided to create a collection "Russian Pantheon", consisting of lifetime portraits of Russian celebrities. The collector began to place orders for the best portrait painters, and he eventually assembled a magnificent pantheon of the colors of the Russian nation.

And since celebrities were not always ready to serve as models for artists, some due to lack of time, others due to superstitions, Tretyakov was incredibly happy if he could persuade to pose for someone who had never dared to be immortalized before.

It was not an easy case with Leo Tolstoy's persuasion to become a model for a commissioned portrait of Kramskoy. He dodged Ivan Nikolaevich's requests in every possible way for several years. But still he surrendered to the energetic itinerant. And a satisfied Tretyakov wrote in a letter to Kramskoy: "… I thought so, that only you will be able to convince the unconvincing - I congratulate you!" And now we can all contemplate the result of the artist's creation, which has been decorating the walls of the Tretyakov Gallery for more than a century.

Ilya Repin also had to persuade Nikolai Ge to pose for him for a long time. He dodged all the time and hinted that he still wanted to live. And Repin did not even suspect that Nikolai Nikolaevich would succumb to superstition and begin to worry quite seriously. However, be that as it may - the portrait of the artist was written and sold to Tretyakov, and Ge still lived for 14 years.

An invaluable gift to your hometown

After Pavel Tretyakov donated the gallery to Moscow, it became known as the Tretyakov City Art Gallery. Her collection includes more than 1,800 paintings and drawings and 10 sculptures.

For such a generous gift, Alexander III decided to give Pavel Mikhailovich a title of nobility, but he refused: - he said. And in 1897, the patron was awarded the title of an honorary citizen of Moscow.

Until the end of his days, Tretyakov continued to donate new works of art to the City Gallery every year. His brother Sergei Mikhailovich also donated his collection of French painting to the gallery, after which some other patrons donated their collections to the fund.

Even after his death, Tretyakov took care of his brainchild. In his will, he allocated substantial funds for the renovation and maintenance of the gallery, although there was a point where he objected to the collection being replenished, fearing that without his supervision the collection would change its character.

However, this point, fortunately, was not fulfilled, and today the Tretyakov Gallery has seven buildings and more than 170 thousand works. It is one of the largest and most significant collections of Russian fine art in the world. By the way, in 1917 the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery consisted of about 4,000 works, by 1975 - 55,000 works. The collection of the Gallery was constantly increasing due to gifts and systematic state purchases.

Pavel Tretyakov was very friendly with the artist Vasily Perov, the lion's share of whose paintings were acquired by the collector during his lifetime. A special place in the gallery of the patron was occupied by custom-made portraits of celebrities of the nineteenth century, painted by the master.