Russian Treasures IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art can see a surprising number of objects and works of art from Russia. Because the museum does not have a department dedicated to Russian culture, seeing these objects requires going on a “treasure hunt” through different departments: Musical Instruments, Medieval Art, Arms and Armor, European Paintings, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Drawings and Prints, Photography, Modern and Contemporary Art, and the Costume Institute. Some of the objects are quite rare and unusual, but others are quite humble and almost ordinary, except for the path that brought them to one of the largest museums in the world. This essay surveys donations of Russian art and design made to the Met by major and minor collectors, as well as objects that entered the museum as part of its regular acquisitions programme.
“Little Turtle” Accordion (“Cherepashka”). 1870-1880
Various materials. 5 × 9.5 × 18.5 cm (closed). The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889
After the Met’s founding in the 1870, among the first Russian objects to enter the collection is certainly one of the most humble: a cherepashka (“little turtle") accordion, or small hand harmonica, dating to 1870-1880. It is a folk instrument with seven keys (“semiklapanka") as well as bass, chord and air-release buttons. We can imagine this cherepashka accompanying songs and dances at festive events in a village before this type of music went out of fashion in the 20th century. Today, it is part of a cosmopolitan display of accordions and hand harmonicas from across Europe. It came to the museum as part of a large gift of musical instruments given by Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown starting in 1889.[1] Brown was a wealthy New York matron who believed that music was not only the most expressive of the arts, but also truly a universal artform. She and her family put together a collection of approximately 3,600 musical instruments, both historical and contemporary, from around the world. Corresponding with a network of church missionaries, anthropologists, traders and other travellers, she persevered in acquiring an astonishing range of instruments and becoming an unofficial curator during the Met's early years. The Russian instruments that she gave to the museum, in addition to the cherepashka, include a full-size accordion, hunting horns for a horn orchestra, balalaikas of various sizes and a large number of bells, among other things.
Temple Pendant with Two Sirens Flanking a Tree of Life. Kievan Rus. 11th-12th century
Cloisonne enamel and gold. 6 × 5.7 × 1.4 cm. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan
Following Brown's gift, more Russian objects came to the Met from the collection of financier and banker John Pierpont Morgan. A patron of the museum since 1871, Morgan was a voracious collector with encyclopaedic tastes. He served as president of the Met from 1904 until his death in 1913. Four years later, his son gave to the museum most of his father's art collection, approximately 7,000 objects, which were dispersed to nearly every department. Among the works that entered the Medieval department are 18 pieces ofjewellery from Kievan Rus dating to the 11th to 13th centuries, including temple pendants and chains of ornamental discs. Some are made of silver with niello decoration and others are gold with enamel motifs. The enamels comprise a range of imagery: birds, geometric motifs, Christian saints, the tree of life, and Sirin figures, legendary creatures with the body of a bird and head of a beautiful woman. This juxtaposition of Christian imagery with pre-Christian supernatural figures suggests the coexistence of multiple belief systems in the region. Morgan acquired these pieces through London dealers from the collection of Aleksandr Zvenigorodskii, a major collector of Byzantine and Medieval ivories, enamels and majolica. In 1892, Zvenigorodskii published “The History and Monuments of Byzantine Enamels from the Collection of A.V. Zvenigorodskii", a finely illustrated luxury volume written by the noted Byzantinist Nikodim Kondakov. The Met's Watson Library holds the sumptuous presentation copy of this book made for Tsar Alexander III. Because the research library stands next to the museum's Byzantine display, the jewellery from Zvenigorodskii's collection is just metres away from the volume in which it is illustrated.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from this glittering jewellery owned by major patrons is a small commemorative toasting glass. It represents a gift to the Met from Leon Grinberg, given in 1951. The glass commemorates the siege of Paris after Napoleon's defeat in Russia with a white glass medallion bearing the words “Paris taken / 19 March / 1814." Above the inscription, the imperial crown surmounts the monogram of Alexander I. The glass was produced by the Bakhmeteff Glassworks in the village of Nikolo-Pestrovko, in the province of Penza, one of the leading private manufacturers of glass and crystal in Imperial Russia. This is more a popular souvenir item than a piece of fine crystal, but the moment it represents makes it a historically significant object. Today, it stands amid a small display of Russian decorative arts—porcelain, ivory and metal — in a gallery filled with 18th- to early 19th-century furniture and objects from across Europe.
Another glass from the Bakhmeteff Glassworks is probably one of the most astonishing Russian objects in the Met's collection: a double-walled beaker, or small tumbler, made by Aleksandr Vershinin, a highly talented serf craftsman who was the chief workmaster at the glassworks. In microscopic detail Vershinin created a tiny landscape from moss, straw, paper, grains of sand and bits of stone and mica between the layers of glass. He attached the decoration to the inner wall and covered it with the faceted outer wall of glass, sealing the two walls together. Only 13 double-walled beakers of this kind by Vershinin are known today, each one unique. In the Met's beaker, the scene depicts a dog chasing a rabbit in a landscape with a cottage and hut. Beneath the scene is a strip of blue enamel to suggest a river. The band around the rim has an elegant gilded pattern with acorns and oak leaves known from other glasses by Vershinin.
The largest number of Russian objects in the museum belong to its largest department, Drawings and Prints. For example, in 1934, the Met purchased a group of five lithographs by Aleksandr Orlovskii, a number that has since nearly doubled through other gifts and acquisitions. Two from the 1934 purchase are self-portraits in different guises. In his “Self-Portrait with an Album and Pen" (1819), Orlovskii presents himself dressed casually in shirtsleeves and a striped scarf, with windswept hair, conveying the essence of a Romantic artist. A Latin inscription informs the viewer “Born in Warsaw in the year 1777. He made [it] himself at the age of 43. [NATUS VAR- SAVIAE ANNO 1777. AETATIS 43. SE IPSUM FECIT]." In a print made shortly thereafter, Orlovskii depicts himself in a fur hat and chokha, a traditional men's coat from the Caucasus region. In both images, he holds the tools of his trade: a pencil holder and paper or portfolio. The earlier self-portrait has a blind stamp in the lower right corner, a copyright granted to the artist to defend against illicit copies made of his work in Russia and abroad. Orlovskii was the first artist in Russia to use the lithograph technique as early as 1816. Romantic artists across Europe, including Theodore Gericault, started using lithography at exactly this time, capitalising on its ability to capture dramatic effects of light and shadow in tonalities resembling black chalk or charcoal.
Prints by modern artists are also represented in the collection. One notable example is an album of color lithographs by Pavel Kuznetsov titled “Mountainous Bukhara" (1923). The album contains 12 prints with landscapes and scenes of daily life based on the artist's travels in the region, as well as a title page and cover. In a short essay enclosed in the album, he describes his inspiration: “The farther I penetrated into the depths of the country, the more the most varied impressions of beauty took shape in my mind; from the steppes to the mountains, from the mountains, with their gurgling rivers twisting like snakes, to the plains, with their sumptuous, fertile, ever-whispering gardens, from delicate
peach trees to surprising many-trunked giant trees, enclosing a teahouse in a single hollow." The colour lithograph process lends these works the appearance of hand-painted watercolors.
In addition to numerous Russian prints from different periods, the Met museum also has original drawings. Some of the most remarkable are the nearly forty original watercolors that the writer and editor Pavel Svinin made during his visit to the United States between 1811 and 1813, when he served as Secretary to the Russian Consul-General in Philadelphia.[2] In one of the illustrations, Svinin depicts himself in a canoe with two Osage Indians, whose images he apparently borrowed from work of Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Memin. Although it is unlikely that he went canoeing with Native Americans during his visit, Svinin clearly wanted to project an image of himself in the primeval wilderness of the New World, conversing with its native inhabitants. His other illustrations include depictions of local types and landscapes that he saw on his travels on the East Coast from Maine to Virginia. Svinin brought the watercolours back to Russia, where he published some of them with accounts of his travels in the journal “Son of the Fatherland" (“Syn otechestva") in 1813 and 1814. He republished the articles in a book titled “A Picturesque Voyage through North America" (1815). At some point after the 1917 revolution, a Red Cross worker acquired the watercolours and brought them to the United States, where they came to the attention of R. T. H. Halsey, the founding curator of the Met's American Wing, who acquired them for his department in 1942. Today, Svinin's watercolors remain in the American Wing, amid depictions of similar sites by American artists.
Arkhip KUINDZHI. Red Sunset on the Dnieper. 1905-1908
Oil on canvas. 134.6 × 188 cm. Rogers Fund, 1974
A very different type of landscape is represented in Arkhip Kuindzhi's “Red Sunset on the Dnieper" (1905-1908), which was first shown in New York City as part of a gallery exhibition and acquired by the museum in 1974. This large-scale, panoramic landscape, with its dramatic lighting effects and somewhat abstracted rendering of space, is characteristic of Kuindzhi's best- known works.[3] Rather than depicting conventional landscapes with recognisable sites and geographical features, Kuindzhi emphasized colour and light, creating theatrical one-painting exhibitions that brought together new ideas about art, science and popular entertainment. When the painting is on view in the Met's 19th-century galleries, it appears alongside landscapes and portraits by a wide range of international artists, including Ilia Repin's 1884 “Portrait of Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin".
Another artist associated with large-scale works, the marine painter Ivan Aivazovskii, is represented in the Met's collection by an unusual miniature painting. The tiny seascape is set into a studio photograph showing the artist with his palette and brushes, admiring his own work — an autograph oil painting — in a frame standing on an easel. He gave these photographs with inset oil paintings to friends, notably at a large dinner party he organised in 1887 to celebrate his 80th birthday. According to an inscription along the base of the picture frame, the artist presented this example to the Armenian- British financier and art collector Calouste Goulbenkian in 1893.
In 1972, the Met received a sizable donation of Russian paintings and graphic works from the Humanities Fund, founded by Boris Bakhmeteff, a Russian engineer, scientist, diplomat and collector. Bakhmeteff served as Russian Ambassador to the United States until 1922. After moving to New York City, he became a leading figure in the Russian emigre community. He developed his art collection from exhibitions of Russian and Soviet art held at the Grand Central Galleries in New York in 1924 and 1929. There, he purchased paintings by Boris Kustodiev, Ilia Mashkov and Konstantin Somov. He also acquired works by artists such as Ilia Repin, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva and Natalia Goncharova from dealers and collectors in the United States and Europe and patronised contemporary emigre artists, including Boris Grigoriev. Bakhmeteff founded the Humanities Fund in 1936 to promote the study of Russian culture. The organisation provided charitable assistance for emigres in need and was the entity that formally owned his art collection. The Humanities Fund donated his art collection to the Met in 1972 and the museum selected and accessioned more than 100 objects, including icons, 19th- and early-20th-century paintings, drawings, prints, ivories and numerous art albums.
Natalia GONCHAROVA. Decor for the ballet Liturgie. 1915
Watercolor, graphite, cut and pasted paper, silver, gold, and colored foil on cardboard. 55.2 × 74.6 cm.
Gift of Humanities Fund Inc., 1972
The Drawings and Prints department holds many of Bakhmeteff's pieces, including Ivan Shishkin's etching “Before the Storm" (1873). One of the founding members of the Society of Russian Etchers in 1871, Shishkin was a prolific printmaker as well as painter.[4] He made this print for the society's third publication, the “Album of Russian Etchers" (1873). Depicting the Russian countryside in a medium closely associated with Rembrandt, Shishkin pays tribute to the Dutch printmaker, whose prints were becoming popular in Russia during this period. He devotes two-thirds of the composition to the dramatic sky, where intense hatching produces dark stormclouds and white birds stand out in reserve. Signs of human habitation recede behind the hill. Shishkin's masterful use of varied hatching marks to create a wide range of expressive tones drew the attention of critics when his etchings went on view with the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. Art dealers often took apart albums to sell loose prints separately for a higher price, which is undoubtedly how Shishkin's work entered Bakhmeteff's collection.
Ivan SHISHKIN. Before the Storm. 1873
Etching. 12.8 × 10.5 cm. Gift of the Humanities Fund, Inc., The Boris Bakhmeteff Collection, 1972
The Met also acquired 10 icons from Bakhmeteff's collection, most of them loosely dated to the 16th to 18th centuries. In 1940, his icons were featured in an exhibition at the Century Club in New York, which he helped to organise. During the early Soviet era, many icons were available on the art market in Europe, which created a great deal of interest among art lovers who saw connections between their simple, abstracted style and modernist art.
Certainly, the most remarkable icon in the Met's collection was a museum purchase instead of a donation. It is an elaborate silver triptych frame containing an icon with the image of the Savior Not Made by Human Hands (the Mandylion) produced at the Kremlin Workshops in 1637. The doors, or wings, are divided into 16 scenes that narrate the icon's story. Inscriptions provide the date and indicate that it was made for the high court official Matfei Timofievich Izmailov in fulfilment of a vow. The ornate frame is fashioned from silver and silver gilt with niello, with additions of enamel, sapphires, rubies, spinels, and pearls. This opulent icon entered the Met's collection in 1975 and is displayed in the museum's Byzantine collection.
KREMLIN WORKSHOPS. Triptych with the Mandylion. 1637
Silver, wood, and various materials. 68.6 × 90.8 × 12.7 cm. Rogers Fund, 1975
Russian porcelain production is represented by 25 figurines from the series “Peoples of Russia" and “Craftsmen and Tradesmen" produced by the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory and the Gardner Porcelain Factory at the end of the 18th century. The figures were modelled after engraved illustrations in Johann Gottlieb Georgi's three-volume publication “A Description of All the Peoples Inhabiting the Russian State" (1774-1779) and works by Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, whose paintings from his travels in Russia were published as prints at about the same time. The figurines came to the Met in 1982 as part of the Jack and Belle Linsky collection of painting, sculpture and decorative arts. The Linsky collection includes more than 200 18th-century porcelain figures, including many Meissen figures from Germany and works from France, Italy and elsewhere. The Russian porcelains are on permanent display alongside chinoiserie, orientalist and Commedia dell'arte figures produced by Western European manufacturers. This juxtaposition shows that, although Europeans had to look to distant countries for exotic subjects, the vast Russian Empire could find a diverse, multicultural population within its own borders.
Also in the 1980s, a remarkable gift came to the museum in the form of a pair of flintlock pistols made for Catherine the Great. Produced in St. Petersburg by the gunsmith Johan Adolph Grecke, they are part of a garniture of four firearms that once included a fowling piece and a rifle. These ornate weapons have ivory stocks finely decorated with gold and brass. The Tsaritsa's monogram “E 11 ” appears on the grips in exquisite escutcheons. She gave the garniture to her favorite, Prince Stanislas August Poniatowski. The pistols were a gift from John M. Schiff, a New York investment banker and philanthropist who served as president of the Boy Scouts of America. Today, the pistols appear in the Arms and Armor galleries alongside other ivory-stocked firearms from the Netherlands and Germany.
TULA ARMS FACTORY. Pair of Flintlock Pistols made for Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich (1779-1831). 1801
Steel, silver, gold, wood. 38.8 cm long. Purchase, 2017
Benefit Fund, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Gift, and several members of the Chairman's Council Gifts, 2018
Another pair of pistols represents the most recent acquisition from Russia to enter the Met's collection. In 2018, the Arms and Armor department purchased a pair of flintlock pistols made for Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich. Produced at the Tula Arms Factory, they are made of steel and wood with distinctive neoclassical silver decoration and exquisite gold inlay. This pair is part of a series of deluxe firearms created for presentation to Alexander I and his three brothers in honour of Alexander's coronation in 1801. After being sold by the Soviet government through Antikvariat in the 1930s, they entered a Paris collection, then came back on the market within the last few years. The garnitures belonging to Nicholas and Alexander remain in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Perhaps, one day, a museum loan will bring them together for an exhibition.
In addition to firearms for the imperial family, the Met also holds other objects from Tula that feature the city's distinctive cut-steel decoration known as steel diamonds, including swords and a knife. The most significant of these objects, however, is not a weapon, but a small table that once stood in the bedroom of the Grand Duchess Maria Fedorovna, later Tsaritsa, at Pavlovsk Palace. The mirror-topped table rests on a pedestal with four small feet that terminate in open-mouthed sea creatures. Neoclassical swags ornament the sides of the table, surrounded by glinting steel diamonds. Research indicates that Maria Fedorovna gave the table to her brother-in-law, Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig of Oldenburg, in memory of his late wife, her sister Friederike von Wurttemberg.[5] The museum acquired the Tula table in preparation for an exhibition honoring the 300th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg in 2003. Today, it stands in the galleries for neoclassical decorative arts amid objects from France, Germany and Italy.
IMPERIAL ARMORY. Centre Table. c. 1780-1785
Steel, silver, gilt copper, gilt brass, basswood; replaced mirror glass. 69.9 × 55.9 × 38.1 cm. Purchase, the Annenberg Foundation Gift, 2002
One of the largest groups of Russian works remains off view most of the time to protect the delicate textiles. In 2009, the Met acquired a group of 240 finely embroidered hand-woven household textiles and magnificent, richly decorated festival garments from the Brooklyn Museum. They had originally belonged to Natalia Shabelskaia, a noblewoman who dedicated herself to preserving Russian folk art traditions. Between 1870 and 1902, she assembled an impressive range of objects, including liturgical textiles from the 16th century, lace, embroidery pieces, textile fragments, elaborately beaded women's headdresses, and sumptuous full ensembles from a variety of provinces. In 1902, she moved to Paris, where she became known as Natalia de Shabelsky. A significant part of Shabelskaia's collection is now held at the Russian Museum of Ethnography in St. Petersburg and other pieces are held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Cleveland Art Museum in Ohio.
A significant gift of Russian art came to the Met as recently as 2015 from the late Sallie Blumenthal, a ballet lover and active supporter of the New York City Ballet. Her bequest included 30 designs for ballet costumes and set designs dating to the 1910s and 1920s, among them extraordinary works by Leon Bakst, Alexandre Benois and Natalia Goncharova, among others. One of the most spectacular designs depicts the costume of a eunuch in Michel Fokine's ballet “Scheherazade", presented in Paris by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. The eunuch's flamboyant costume, in red and orange with white and brilliant-blue accents, testifies to the dazzling orientalist performance that captivated Paris. Blumenthal's bequest enriched the Met's holdings of work by Bakst, which includes not only ballet decor and costume designs, but also designs for fashion.
Léon BAKST. Costume Design for a Eunuch in Scheherazade. c. 1910
Gouache and graphite, heightened with gold paint. 43.2 × 27.3 cm. Bequest of Sallie Blumenthal, 2015
This small sampling of art and objects from Russia at the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens a window onto the vast range of the institution's holdings. From folk objects to imperial possessions, from Scythian metalwork to fine paintings and stage designs, marvellous works from Russian lands have enriched nearly all of the Met's 17 curatorial departments. Visitors to the museum will find these objects integrated with comparable works from other countries and cultures. A treasure hunt through the museum provides an opportunity to experience the richness and diversity of Russian art and culture in New York City.
The author is grateful to Galina Mardilovich for her advice during the preparation of this article.
- Sally B. Brown, “Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown: An Incurable Collector of Musical Instruments,” in “A Gift of Sound: The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments,” special issue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 76, no. 1 (Summer 2018): 4-45.
- Pavel P. Svinin, “A Russian Paints America: The Travels of Pavel P. Svinin, 1811-1813”, edited by Marina Swoboda and William Benton Whisenhunt (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008).
- Viktoria Paranyuk, “Painting Light Scientifically: Arkhip Kuindzhi’s Intermedial Environment,” Slavic Review 78, no. 2 (Summer 2019): 456-480.
- Galina Mardilovich, “Russkie Akvafortisty: The Society of Russian Etchers and Early Artistic Organization in the Russian Art World, 1871-75,” Art History 39, no. 5 (Nov. 2016): 926-951.
- Wolfram Koeppe, entry in “Recent Acquisitions, a Selection: 2001-2002,” special issue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 60, no. 2 (Fall 2002).
Southern Siberia. Bronze. H. 2 1/4 in. (5.7 cm); W. 5 in. (12.7 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene V. Thaw, 2002
Oil on canvas. 88.9 × 69.2 cm
Gift of Humanities Fund Inc.
Cloisonne enamel and gold. 11.6 × 2.4 × 0.5 cm
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan
Wooden pendant made of two discs topped with an ornament of silvergilt with pearls and garnet. 7.6 × 5.7 × 2.1 cm closed, Rogers Fund, 1934
Silk, metal. 20.3 × 20.3 cm. Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gift of the Brooklyn Museum
Silk, metal, cotton, paper. Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum
tempera on wood. 69.2 × 50.2 cm
Gift of the Humanities Fund, Inc., The Boris Bakhmeteff Collection, 1972
Ivory, 6 × 0.7 cm
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Silk, metallic thread, cotton. 45.7 × 45.7 cm
Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum
Glass, enamel; moss, straw, paper, sand, stone, clay and mica. 10.5 cm high, 7.3 cm diameter
Munsey Fund, 1927
Silver gilt. 15.7 cm high
Bequest of Vladimir M. Eitingon, in memory of his wife, Nadine (Nadia) Eitingon
From album “Russian Palaces and Gardens”, published by Imperial Academy of Arts, 1761, engraving on blue paper. 76.8 × 101.6 cm
Gift of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman
From album “Russian Palaces and Gardens”, published by Imperial Academy of Arts, 1761
Engraving on blue paper. 76.8 × 101.6 cm
Gift of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman
Red pine with wrought-iron clips. 78.7 × 49.2 × 31.8 cm. Wrightsman Fund, 1996
Walrus ivory. 6.3 × 5.6 cm
Gift of the Humanities Fund, Inc., The Boris Bakhmeteff Collection, 1972
Walrus ivory. 6.3 × 5.6 cm
Gift of the Humanities Fund, Inc., The Boris Bakhmeteff Collection, 1972
Lithograph. 62.5 × 47 cm
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1934
Lithograph. 45 × 36.8 cm
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1934
Watercolour and graphite on white wove paper. 14.8 × 21.6 cm
Rogers Fund, 1942
Glass. 13.5 × 4.6 cm
Gift of Leon Grinberg, 1951
Hard-paste porcelain
The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection, 1982
Walrus and elephant ivory. 21.9 × 7.6 × 7.6 cm
Purchase, Friends of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Gifts, 1998
Silk, cotton, metal
Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Edward S. Harkness in memory of her mother, Elizabeth Greenman Stillman, 1931
Oil on canvas. 54 × 65.1 cm
Gift of the Humanities Fund, Inc., The Boris Bakhmeteff Collection, 1972
Pencil and watercolour. 37.5 × 26.8 cm. Bequest of Mary Jane Dastich, in memory of her husband, General Frank Dastich
Colour woodcut. 9 × 14.2 cm
Gift of the Humanities Fund, Inc., The Boris Bakhmeteff Collection, 1972
Oil on canvas. 120.3 × 140.3 cm. Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949
Gouache, graphite and gold paint. 22.9 × 31.1 cm. Bequest of Sallie Blumenthal, 2015
Watercolor, gouache, and charcoal. 73.7 × 135.9 cm. Bequest of Sallie Blumenthal, 2015