Perpetual Wanderers?
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In the late 1920s, the Soviet government urgently needed foreign currency to finance the rapid
industrialization of Russia ordered in the first Five Year Plan. The government had already sold
off collections of jewelry, furniture and icons seized from the Russian nobility, wealthy classes,
and the church. In February 1928, the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, along with the Russian Museum, was ordered to make a list of art works worth at least two million rubles, for export. A special agency called 'Antiquariat' was created under the Narkompros (the People's Commisariat of Enlightenment) and opened an office in Leningrad to oversee the sale. The Hermitage was instructed to sell 250 paintings for at least 5000 roubles each, plus engravings and a number of golden treasures from ancient Scythia. The sale was secret, but word was quietly spread to selected western art dealers and collectors that the paintings were on the market. The first foreign buyer to purchase Hermitage paintings was Calouste Gulbenkian, the founder of the Iraq Petroleum Company, who began buying paintings in early 1930, trading them for oil with the Russians. The organizers of the sale were dissatisfied with the amounts they received from Gulbenkian, so they looked for other buyers. Francis Matthieson, a young German art dealer, was asked by the Soviet Government to compile a list of the hundred paintings in Russian collections, which should never be sold under any circumstances. He was most surprised to be shown several of these paintings not long after in Paris by Gulbenkian. Gulbenkian wanted him to act as his agent on further purchases, but Matthieson instead formed a consortium with Colnaghi's of London and Knoedler & Co of New York, which in 1930 and 1931 bought twenty-one paintings from the Russians, all of which were bought by Andrew Mellon, who had been offered first refusal. Andrew William Mellon (March 24, 1855 - August 27, 1937), an American banker, Secretary of the Treasury for Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, art collector and, at the time, American Ambassador to Great Britain, had conceived the idea of founding a National Gallery for the United States modeled after the National Gallery in London. He heard about the Hermitage sale through the art gallery he usually used for his purchases, the Knoedler Gallery of New York, Paris and London. The Lute Player by Antoine Watteau, was purchased for the Hermitage by Catherine the Great in 1767. It was sold in May 1930 to Calouste Gulbenkian, who sold it in 1934 to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.Mellon's syndicate bought groups of important paintings from the Hermitage, including Van Eyck's Annunciation and Raphael's The Alba Madonna. The latter painting was sold for $1,166,400, the largest sum ever paid for a single painting until that time. The Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings in 1930 and 1931 resulted in the departure of some of the most valuable paintings from the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad to western museums. Several of the paintings had been in the Hermitage Collection since its creation by Empress Catherine the Great. About two hundred and fifty paintings were sold, including fifty masterpieces by Van Eyck, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael, and other important artists. By the end of 1931, Mellon had acquired twenty-one paintings for just 6,654,033 dollars. He donated these paintings in 1937 to the United States, along with $10 million to build a museum to house them. This gift was accepted by the Joint Resolution of the 75th Congress, (1st session-CHS. 49, 50 - March 24, 1937 Sec.3) and all twenty-one paintings became the nucleus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. The sale was secret until November 4, 1933, when it was reported in the New York Times that several Hermitage paintings had been purchased by the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The sale came to an end in 1934, possibly as a result of a letter to Stalin from the deputy director of the Hermitage, Joseph Orbeli, protesting the sale of Russia's treasures. The director of the Hermitage, Boris Legran, who had been brought to the museum to conduct the sale, was dismissed in 1934 and replaced by Orbeli. In the 1990s, following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Parliament of the Russian Federation passed a new law prohibiting the sale of Russian art treasures to foreign countries. I have visited the National Gallery of Art numerous times and have seen that for many years some of the paintings from the initial collection donated by Andrew W. Mellon have not been exhibited. I have found several sources that indicate that some of the paintings are stored in the Gallery Archives and information about some of the paintings is completely missing even on the National Gallery of Art website. However, according to the Joint Resolution of the 75th Congress, 1st session-CHS. 49, 50 - March 24, 1937 Sec. 3, "Upon completion of the National Gallery of Art, the board [was to] accept for the Smithsonian Institution as a gift from the donor (The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust) a collection of works of art which [were to] be housed and exhibited in the National Gallery of Art." As such, I am concerned by the fact that, in contradiction to the Congressional resolution, these works are not currently exhibited. According to a very basic leaflet (just a standard piece of paper - A4 format) issued by the National Gallery of Art, seven paintings from Andrew W. Mellon’s gift "have been re-attributed (and re-titled) since that time, [as] a result of more recent scholarship and research." However, I did not find any serious proof that this "recent scholarship and research" has in fact been confirmed and widely accepted by professional art experts. I have tried to inquire from the National Gallery about these changes and request documentation of scholarship based on which it accepted the new titles and attributions of the paintings (for example, official expertise confirming the veracity of the new findings). Yet, establishing contact or soliciting any information from the National Gallery of Art Board of Trustees has been extremely difficult. As you can see from the web page related to the Board, it has not been updated for a very long time. For instance, the last press release is dated 10/19/07 ( http://www.nga.gov/xio/trustees.shtm ). I am not against periodical new exhibitions, but I think that the Board of Trustees has to demonstrate respect for the historical event of the founding of the Gallery (through the paintings given by Mellow). Therefore, the initial A.W. Mellon collection, as the core of the National Gallery of Art, should be untouchable. In addition, comprehensive booklets and a web page related to A.W. Mellon collection should be created. |