Western European Painting in the Hermitage Museum [antikvár]

THE PICTURE GALLERY constitutes the museum's principal section, as also the oldest in point of time. It came into being with the acquisition, in 1764, of 225 paintings of West European masters from a Berlin merchant named Gotzkowski. Over the next two centuries the Museum's collection increased to 8,000 pictures. Practically all schools and trends that were ever in vogue in Western Europe since the introduction of easel painting and down to the mid-twentieth century are represented in this collection. The numerous masterpieces on exhibit or in storage have brought the gallery world-wide fame as one of the finest in existence. Every year, more than 3,000,000 visitors from all over the Soviet Union and many foreign countries discover for themselves the celebrated creations of the artistic genius of the peoples of Western Europe. The first specimens of West European painting began to reach the shores of the Neva shortly after the founding of the new Russian capital by Peter I. That was a period when Russia's contacts with West European culture and art had already fallen into a pattern: young Russian painters were perfecting their skill in France and Italy; painters from Germany, France and Switzerland were being invited to work in St. Petersburg; and the first purchases of canvases of European masters were being made in Holland and Belgium. In 1716, for instance, 121 canvases were bought for Peter I in Holland by 0. Solovyov and 117 were acquired at the same time in Brussels and Antwerp by a commercial agent named Yu. Kologrivov. Shortly thereafter the collection was augmented by 119 more paintings sent to Peter I by two English merchants, Evan and Elsen. Predominant in Peter I's collection were the works of Dutch and Flemish painters. Y. Stehlin. the tsar's biographer, recorded that his favourite painters were Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Steen, Wouwerman, Brueghel, van der Werff and van Ostade, and that his best-liked subjects were genre scenes depicting "Dutch rustics". These Dutch proclivities should not be taken as merely reflecting the personal tastes of Peter "the shipmaster": the burgher-democracy of Holland, which had found such vigorous expression in that country's painting, had much in common with the democratic innovations in the field of culture and home life that were being introduced by the tsar in line with the course of national development. The early part of the eighteenth century saw the establishment of picture galleries in St. Petersburg and Peterhof, notably in Monplaisir Palace which as a court collection may be considered the prototype of the Hermitage. The artistic level of these galleries was not all that could be desired, yet some of their exhibits were of outstanding merit and were later added to the golden fund of the Hermitage Museum. One such canvas was Rembrandt's David and Jonathan, originally exhibited in Monplaisir, but transferred in 1882 to the Hermitage. This, incidentally, was the first Rembrandt to arrive in Russia. In the mid-eighteenth century a rather important collection of West European paintings was to be found in the palace gallery in Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin). The Picture Hall gallery of this palace contained 115 canvases, mostly belonging to German, Dutch and Flemish masters, with a sprinkling of French and Italian works, purchased by Georg Groot, a German painter, at the request of Empress Elizabeth. Among these canvases, some of which were even second-rate, there were quite valuable works, such as the Danae of Jacques Blanchard, a French painter, a Church Interior 5