Exhibition "The Art of the Imperial Palaces"

About exhibition

The anteroom and enfilade exhibition of the "Center of Arts. Moscow" is dedicated to the art of the Imperial palaces. It presents paintings originating from the collections of Russian emperors, grand dukes and duchesses, as well as artists valued by the Imperial House of the Romanovs. All the works on display are now held in private collections. The anteroom houses the formal portraits of Russian emperors Alexander II, Alexander III, and Nicholas II. At the beginning of the enfilade a collection of canvases by popular landscape painters of the turn of the 19th–20th centuries is shown: Gavriil Pavlovich Kondratenko and Viktor Pavlovich Baturin. The main part of the enfilade exhibits landscape painting. A painting by Fyodor Alexandrovich Vasiliev (1850–1873), "View of Ai-Petri from Miskhor" (1873), is one of the last works in the artist's legacy; he lived only 23 years. Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich commissioned Vasiliev to execute four panels for a screen, created as a gift for Empress Maria Alexandrovna (the wife of Alexander II). The central part of the enfilade features the most representative publicly exhibited collection of paintings by Ivan Fedorovich Shultze (1874–1939). A painter of light inspired by the legacy of A. I. Kuindzhi, he was friends with the Romanov family and with Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, who valued his talent. Another painting in the enfilade exhibition associated with Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna is "With the Departure" (1880) by Mikhail Vasilievich Nesterov (1862–1942). It was long kept in the grand duchess's personal collection and was even taken with her into exile in Denmark.