Belʹgijskaja i gollandskaja živopisʹ XIX-XX vekov: katalog kollekcii = Belgian and Dutch painting, 19th-20th centuries : catalogue of the collection

Abstract

The Hermitage collection of Belgian and Dutch paintings is now the largest and best outside Belgium and Holland; it is especially strong in works of the mid nineteenth century. Works by such major artists as Louis Gallatt, Henri Leys, Ferdinand de Braekeleer, Alfred Stevens, Joseph Stevens, Barend Cornelis Koekoek, and Herman ten Kate are characteristic of the period. In the introduction the author outlines the collection as a whole and points out how it was formed - mainly through nationalization of private collections after the 1917 revolution. The most important collections were the result of sensitive collecting by A. M. Gorchakov, Russian ambassador in Stuttgart in the 1840s, and by N. A. Kushelev-Bezborodko, who bequeathed his collection to the Russian Academy of Arts. Information on the provenance of Dutch and Belgian paintings comes from nineteenth-century catalogues of exhibitions at the Academy of Arts and the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (Obshchestvo pooshchreniia khudozhnikov). This is the first attempt at a comprehensive and scholarly study of the Hermitage collection, and some of the works are published for the first time. The author notes that much research is still ahead.