WORLD MUSEUMS

Jared Ash
The Met at 150. RUSSIAN ART IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART’S THOMAS J. WATSON LIBRARY

#2 2020 (67)

The Thomas J. Watson Library, the primary research library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, holds more than one million volumes on art, archaeology, architecture, ornament and design. Founded in 1870 under the same charter as that of the Museum itself, the scope of the Library collection is as encyclopaedic as the Museum’s. Offering a strong complement to Russian art and objects in the Museum’s curatorial collections, Watson’s holdings promote awareness, understanding and appreciation of an even wider field of Russian art and material culture.

Margaret Samu
Russian Treasures IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

#2 2020 (67)

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.

Alexandra Murre
"Unknown Masterpieces". Treasures of Russian Art from the Museum Collections of the Baltic Countries

#4 2012 (37)

This spring Tallinn hosted a large-scale exhibition of Russian art from the mid-19th to the early 20th century from the collections of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian museums, titled "Unknown Masterpieces. Russian Art in the Collections of the Baltic Countries". In total, seven museums took part in the exhibition: the project's initiator the Art Museum of Estonia, the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Lithuanian Art Museum, the Lithuanian Theatre, Music and Film Museum, the Ciurlionis National Art Museum, the Narva Museum and the Tartu Art Museum. Conceived for the general public, it included characteristic works by famous artists, mainly paintings, complemented by some graphics and sculptures.

“Unknown Masterpieces”. Treasures of Russian Art from the Museum Collections of the Baltic Countries

Alexandra Murre
Russian art in the Art Museum of Estonia

#4 2012 (37)

Russian art forms one of the most significant parts of the Art Museum of Estonia's foreign art collection in terms of both the number of exhibits and their artistic and historical value. It includes about 350 paintings, 120 sculptures, 870 engravings and drawings and around 200 items of applied art, created between the 17th century and the 1950s. Despite the large number of works, they do not form a single whole reflecting the development paths of Russian art, but are rather a reflection of the complicated history of the formation of the collection. The museum's Russian art collection includes both valuable works by famous masters and unassuming creations by third-rate, nearly forgotten painters. Many items in this collection need complementary research, attribution or reattribu-tion, or closer definition of a work's title or creation period.

“Unknown Masterpieces”. Treasures of Russian Art from the Museum Collections of the Baltic Countries

Xenia Rudzite
Russian paintings in the Latvian National Museum of Art

#4 2012 (37)

The Latvian National Museum of Art has a branch museum, the Riga Bourse Art Museum which opened in 2011 and displays foreign art. The Riga Bourse is also home to a collection of Russian paintings, graphics, sculpture and items of applied arts, which is the largest in the Baltic countries. The history of the collection’s formation dates back to the mid-to-late 19th century. Riga then had two collections of art open to the public – the Riga City Painting Gallery (since 1869) and the “Kunstverein”, or the collection of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (since 1872), hosting works by Russian artists alongside works by artists from other countries. Items reached the Riga collections by different routes.

“Unknown Masterpieces”. Treasures of Russian Art from the Museum Collections of the Baltic Countries

Dalia Tarandaite
Russian painting in the collection of the Lithuanian Art Museum

#4 2012 (37)

The painting collection of the Lithuanian Art Museum includes about 300 canvases by famous Russian artists, reflecting the main trends of Russian art, which reached the museum in various periods and under various circumstances.

Marina Vaizey
The Face of Britain

#4 2012 (37)

The world’s largest collection of personalities and faces from the late Middle Ages to the present day, London’s National Portrait Gallery is the oldest such institution in the world, founded in 1856 on a strong intellectual base which was a consensual attitude at the time: the 19th-century emphasis on the ways in which individuals influenced, and indeed led the events of history. One of its major supporters was the leading historian Thomas Carlyle, who also was an early trustee.