The Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow [antikvár]

THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY in Moscow is a world-famous museum of Russian art. It was founded by Pavel Tretyakov (1832-1898), a highly educated man with wide-ranging interests. At the outset of his career as a collector Tretyakov bought almost exclusively Western European engravings and paintings by old Dutch masters, but before long, however, he began to concentrate his efforts on purchasing works of Russian art. On the 12th of May, 1856, he came into the possession of his first Russian painting, The Temptation, by Nikolai Schilder, and this date is traditionally regarded as the day of the Gallery's foundation. Tretyakov's method of collecting had a consistent and systematic character. He bought many of the finest works of Russian democratic art which appeared at various exhibitions held at that time. Tretyakov saw his civic duty in the creation of a gallery of portraits of prominent figures in the field of Russian culture and science, and from the 1860s on he commissioned many outstanding Russian artists, among others, Vasily Perov, Ivan Kramskoi, Ilya Repin, Nikolai Gay and Nikolai Nevrev, to paint portraits of foremost writers, musicians, composers, actors and scholars. When, in the early 1870s, the Society for Circulating Art Exhibitions was found, Tretyakov gave it enthusiastic support.