Nikolai Alexandrovich Kushelev-Bezborodko
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Nikolai Alexandrovich Kushelev-Bezborodko (; 28 November 1834—11 April 1862,
Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one millionAlexander Kushelov-Bezborodko Count Alexander Grigorovich Kushelev-Bezborodko (; 4 September 1800, St. Petersburg - 6 April 1855, Moscow) was a Russian Imperial nobleman and politician. Life His parents were Grigori Grigorovich Kushelev (1754-1833) and his wife Ljubov' Il'ini ...
(1800-1855), senator, state controller, count and member of the
Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...
, whilst his mother was Alexander's wife Alexandra Nikolaevna née Princess Repnina-Volkonskaya. After his father's death he inherited half his estate and his art collection. At the end of the
Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...
he went on a trip to Europe, where he explored several museums and exhibitions and decided to expand his father's collection. He began to actively buy up contemporary paintings and sculptures, mainly from France and in large part directly from the artists or their dealers. In a very short time he managed to expand the collection significantly - despite (or perhaps because of) his lack of age, experience and knowledge he appreciated modern artists such as
Théodore Rousseau Étienne Pierre Théodore Rousseau (; 15 April 181222 December 1867) was a French painter of the Barbizon school. Life Youth He was born in Paris, France in a bourgeois family. At first he received a basic level of training, but soon displa ...
,
Jules Dupré Jules Louis Dupré (; April 5, 1811 – October 6, 1889) was a French painter, one of the chief members of the Barbizon school of landscape painters. If Corot stands for the lyric and Rousseau for the epic aspect of the poetry of nature, Dupré ...
, Delacroix,
Jean-François Millet Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realis ...
,
Constant Troyon Constant Troyon (; August 28, 1810 – February 21, 1865) was a French painter of the Barbizon school. In the early part of his career, he painted mostly landscapes. It was only comparatively late in life that Troyon found his ''métier'' as ...
Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( ; ; ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the ...
and
Corot CoRoT (French: ; English: Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits) was a space telescope mission which operated from 2006 to 2013. The mission's two objectives were to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly t ...
and brought the Barbizon school to the attention of Russian audiences. He died suddenly in 1862 and his artworks were added to the collections of the museum at the
Imperial Academy of Arts The Imperial Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov, the founder of the Imperial Moscow University, under the name ''Academy of th ...
in
St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
, forming a distinct Kushelevskaya Gallery of over 500 paintings and sculptures. Between 1922 and 1923 almost the whole of this collection was transferred to the
Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and holds the large ...
, from which some of the paintings were again transferred between 1923 and 1925 to the new
Pushkin Museum The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (, abbreviated as , ''GMII'') is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. It is located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Sviatos ...
. The Hermitage devoted an exhibition to the collection in 1993. ''Григорьев А.'' Шедевры и салонная живопись из собрания Кушелева-Безбородко // Коммерсант. — № 128. — 9 июля 1993 г.
/ref> Most of the paintings from the collection are now on display on the third floor of the General Staff Building as part of the 1800-1850 rooms, whilst a room opened on the fourth floor of the same building in 2017 devoted to the Barbizon School works from the collection.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kushelev-Bezborodko, Nikolai category:Art collectors from the Russian Empire category:1834 births category:1862 deaths category:Hermitage Museum category:Pushkin Museum Burials at the Dukhovskaya Church