Russian royalty

It is not as surprising at it sounds that two of the greatest collectors of modern art should have been merchants from 19th-century Moscow. If Russia managed to contrive a semblance of western civilisation in St Petersburg, it was by virtue of being directly under the steely Tsarist eye. Moscow on the other hand, half lost in the shadows of barbarism, was more wacky and roguish. It liked to think it was home to the true Russian spirit, which artistically meant gaudy folk art, icons, sad music and weird architecture. However the tiny rich class were desperate for the oxygen of enlightened humanist society which they found, like their St Petersburg compatriots, in Paris (it must always be remembered that Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes could never perform in Russia).

Ivan Morozov, a textile manufacturer, and Sergei Shchukin, who made nothing but was a textile entrepreneur, were among them. They both bought in Paris and shipped back to Moscow a staggering number of masterpieces by Monet, Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso and others, when the Modern Movement was still derided even in France. Only Leo and Gertrude Stein were quicker off the mark. Morozov kept his collection private; Shchukin however opened his every Sunday. I think it unlikely he would have been able to do this in St Petersburg; but even in Moscow he trembled sometimes at the scandal he might be causing. Ilya Repin’s wife, who should have known better but was envious and anti-western, wrote: ‘I wanted to get out of that house as quickly as I could.’

The Communists nationalised both collections. Stalin locked them away as degenerate. Why this book’s subtitle refers to ‘lost masterpieces’ I don’t know. The works, today shared between galleries in Moscow and St Petersburg, are among the glories of the Russian tourist trail.