Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings
The Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings in 1930 and 1931 resulted in the departure of some of the most valuable paintings from the collection of the
History
In the late 1920s, the Soviet government urgently needed foreign currency to finance the rapid industrialization of Russia ordered in the first Five Year Plan. The government had already sold off collections of jewelry, furniture and icons seized from the Russian nobility, wealthy classes, and the church.
In February 1928, the
The sale was secret, but word was quietly spread to selected western art dealers and collectors that the paintings were on the market.
The first foreign buyer to purchase Hermitage paintings was Calouste Gulbenkian, the founder of the Iraq Petroleum Company, who began buying paintings in early 1930, trading them for oil with the Russians. These works later formed part of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, in Lisbon. However, the organizers of the sale were dissatisfied with the amounts they received from Gulbenkian, so they looked for other buyers.
Franz Zatzenstein-Matthiesen, a young German art dealer, had been asked by the
The sale remained secret until November 4, 1933, when it was reported in the New York Times that several Hermitage paintings, including the
The sales came to an end in 1934, possibly as a result of a letter to Stalin from the deputy director of the Hermitage, Joseph Orbeli, protesting the sale of Russia's treasures. The director of the Hermitage, Boris Legran, who had been brought to the museum to conduct the sale, was dismissed in 1934 and replaced by Orbeli.
In 1937, Andrew Mellon donated the twenty-one paintings, along with the money to build a National Gallery of Art to house them, to the United States Government. The paintings were, and remain, the heart of the National Gallery of Art collection.
Other sales were made in the same period, notably the
In the 1990s, following the
For many years the National Gallery of Art was reluctant to lend the paintings it had bought from the Hermitage back to that Museum, for fear that the Russian government would keep the paintings in Russia. That policy changed after 1990, when
Timeline
February 1928
Hermitage ordered to prepare list of paintings for sale.
April 1929
January 1930
- Antoine Watteau, The Lute Player (sold to Calouste Gulbenkian.)
- Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of Titus, (sold to Calouste Gulbenkian)
- Anthony van Dyck, Susanna Fourment and her daughter (sold to Mellon syndicate)
- Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Philip, Lord Wharton (sold to Mellon syndicate)
March 1930
- Lisboa, Portugal)
May 1930
- Nicolas Lancret, The Beautiful Bathers, (sold to Calouste Gulbenkian, then resold to George Wildenstein. Now in a private collection.)
June 1930
- Jan van Eyck, The Annunciation, (sold to Mellon syndicate for $502,899.)
- Lisboa, Portugal)
July 1930
- Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Isabella Brandt (sold to Mellon syndicate for $223,000.)
October 1930
- Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of an Old Man, (sold to Gulbenkian for 30,000 pounds sterling Lisboa, Portugal)
November 1930
- Adriaen Hanneman, Portrait of Henry, Duke of Gloucester (sold to Mellon syndicate)
- The Finding of Moses(sold to Mellon syndicate)
January, 1931
- Rembrandt van Rijn, Joseph Accused by the Wife of Potiphar (sold to Mellon syndicate)
February 1931
- Frans Hals, Portrait of a Young Man (Mellon syndicate).
- Rembrandt van Rijn, Woman with a Pink (Mellon syndicate).
- Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of a Polish Nobleman, (Mellon syndicate).
- Saint George and the Dragon. (Mellon Syndicate)
- Velázquez. Portrait of Pope Innocent X (Mellon Syndicate; the New York version)
- Sandro Botticelli, The Adoration of the Magi, (Mellon Syndicate.)
- Frans Hals, Portrait of an Officer. (Mellon Syndicate.)
- Rembrandt van Rijn, Women with a Rose, (Mellon Syndicate)
- Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, House of Cards, (Mellon Syndicate.)
April 1931
- Rembrandt van Rijn, A Turk. (Mellon Syndicate.)
- Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of a Flemish lady. (Mellon Syndicate.)
- Pietro Perugino, The Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary, Saint John, St. Jerome and St. Mary Magdalene. (Mellon Syndicate).
- Raphael, The Alba Madonna. (sold to Mellon Syndicate for $1,166,400)
- Titian, Venus with a Mirror. (Mellon Syndicate.)
February 1932
- Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Banquet of Cleopatra, (sold to Knoedler and Colnaghi Galleries, now in National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia)
Others
- Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych by van Eyck, bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in November 1933
References
- ^ "Russian will review art sales". LA Times. 9 December 2008. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
- ISBN 0-8109-3658-5.
- ^ Walker, 1964, pp 24-6
- ^ Metzger, Bruce M.; Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (4th ed.). New York – Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 64.
Bibliography
- Selling Russia's Treasures by Nicholas Iljine, Natalia Semenova and Amir G. Kabiri (project directors). MTA Publishing (The M.T. Abraham Foundation), Paris-Moscow, 2013.
- Prodannye Sokrovishcha Rossii (lit. The Sold Treasures of Russia) by Nicholas Iljineand Natalia Semenova (project directors). Russkiy Avantgard publishers, Moscow, 2000.
- Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art : A Gift to the Nation. Harry Abrams, New York, 1991.
- Serapina, N. Ermitazh kotory my poteryali (lit. The Hermitage which we lost.) Neva, Number 3, 1999.
- Walker, John, The National Gallery, Washington. Thames & Hudson, London, 1964.