QUARANTINE BLOG # 215

October 31, 2020

Before we return to “The Incredible Hermitage ...”

Don’t forget to “fall back” tonight.

In 1918 the Russian calendar was 13 days behind the rest of Europe. On Lenin’s instructions, February was reduced to 15 days in order to catch up. So the February Revolution in fact took place in March. The Hermitage was closed early in the month because of shooting in the streets. On March 15, Emperor Nicholas Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov abdicated. He and his family were later taken to Ekaterinburg and on July 17, they were all executed.

It might be expected that a Communist state would desecrate or destroy an elitist collection of art treasures put together by a hated imperial family, but the opposite happened. The Hermitage was regarded as a precious repository of national culture which should be preserved for the enjoyment of the proletariat.

The Hermitage was given all the best art in public and private collections in St Petersburg. By 1996 the museum owned over three million objects compared to one million in 1918. It became the Soviet government’s number one cultural showcase.

A brief aside: If you could stay awake for an entire month, and looked at each piece in the collection for one second, you would not see the entire collection. Another way to judge the size of the collection: if you spend a minute at one item and spend 8 hours in the Hermitage daily, it will take you almost 15 years to view all the museum’s exhibits!

In the spring of 1930 the assistant curator of the museum was told one night to stay behind in the museum after it closed, take Jan van Eyck’s Annunciation, off of the walls, and hand it to the representative of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. She was then to rearrange the way the paintings were hung so that the public would not notice a gap.

The Annunciation by Jan van Eyck. The Annunciation shows the Archangel Gabriel telling  the Virgin Mary that she will bear the son of God (Luke 1:26-38). The inscription shows his words in Latin: “Hail, full of grace.” She modestly draws back and responds, “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord.” The words appear upside down because they are directed to God and are therefore inscribed with a God’s-eye view.

In June 1930 the painting was bought by Andrew Mellon, the United States Treasury Secretary, for $502,899. The Annunciation was one of 21 paintings that he acquired from the Hermitage. Mellon went on to found the National Gallery, and the Hermitage paintings have become the stars of America’s national collection.

Massive sales which took place between 1928 and 1932 are still regarded at the Hermitage as a criminal act by the Soviet government. It is the loss of great Old Master paintings that still rankles most. Roughly 25 world-class paintings were sold. 

Faberge: The Imperial Coronation Egg. 1897

Titian. Venus with a Mirror. Circa 1555

The political background for the sales lies in Stalin’s first Five Year Plan and the country’s shortage of foreign currency. Stalin was determined to build up Russia’s industrial base and create an economically viable Socialist state. So critical was the need for foreign currency that in 1929-30 Stalin chose to export grain and allow his own citizens to starve. 

The caption reads: “Beloved Stalin. People’s Happiness!” Political advertising today is just as untrustworthy.

Very little church silver was saved from the melting pot. One exceptional piece remains in the Hermitage, the Sarcophagus of Alexander Nevsky, Prince of Novgorod, Grand Prince of Kiev, was declared a saint in 1549.  Peter the Great’s daughter, the Empress Elizabeth, commissioned the pyramid-shaped sarcophagus, the largest silver monument in the world. It is made up of several pieces, and contains 1½ tons of silver.

On Sunday June 22, 1941, at 11 a.m. the Hermitage doors opened as usual; guided tours moved around the galleries. At noon patrons heard the announcement that Hitler’s forces had invaded Russia. The museum emptied. 

Museum Director Iosif Orbeli ordered the preparation of the Hermitage treasures for evacuation, a packing marathon which continued non-stop for six days and nights. A 32 car train with two engines, two cars for anti-aircraft batteries, a passenger car for the Hermitage staff and the military guard, and 27 cars filled with 500,000 pieces of art left for Ekaterinburg. Three weeks later a second train left containing one million pieces packed into 23 freight cars.

During the Siege of Leningrad, the Hermitage was hit by 32 shells and two bombs, but remained standing with all its windows, some five acres of glass, shattered and boarded up. The cream of the collection spent the war years at Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg) in the Urals in the house where the imperial family died in 1918.

Orbeli returned to the museum in June 1944. The materials necessary to begin the  restoration included 65 tons of plaster, 80 tons of alabaster, 100 tons of cement, two tons of joiner’s glue, 15,000 feet of triple strength glass plus 6,500 feet of extra fine glass, 6,500 feet of canvas, 100,000 feet of decorative fabrics, two tons of casting bronze, two tons of sheet bronze and six kilograms of gold leaf.

On November 4, 1945, 68 rooms of the museum were reopened to the public. Despite the war, very little of the collection was lost. The building was patched and painted until it looked like new. In bad weather, however, the building still springs leaks where the shells hit it, like an old soldier troubled by his war wounds. Watch a video I made of the Siege of Leningrad and the emptying of the Heritage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up62eReQJ20.

👉   The Quarantine Blog Index has been updated with the October additions http://davidsisler.com/QB_index.pdf.

👉   We will complete the story of The Incredible Hermitage next Saturday, but before we go, here is a song of the season https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U1Bz_NUKxQ.

-30-