Saint Petersburg collectors.(Report from Europe)(Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, Dmitri Tatishchyev, Prince Alexander Gorchakov, and Count Nikolai Alexandrovich Kushelev-Bezborodko's work exhibited)(Brief article)

The Russian city of Saint Petersburg was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, who decreed that Russia's wealthiest families should build, occupy, and furnish palaces there. This became the impetus for members of the Russian aristocracy to become major collectors of the fine and decorative arts. In 1718 Peter himself opened his own Kunstkamera, which displayed exotica from many distant countries. His daughter Elizabeth I continued the policy, and by the time she died there were eight imperial painting galleries, two national galleries, and twelve major private collections in the city that bore her father's name.

Elizabeth's daughter-in-law Catherine the Great raised the art of collecting to new heights. By the end of the eighteenth century there were more than fifty significant private collections in Saint Petersburg, many of which eventually came to the ...