The Romanovs Collect: European Art from the Hermitage was an art exhibition at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), on display from September 21 to November 23, 2003. [1] [2] [3] It was part of the festival "Celebrating St. Petersburg: 300 Years of Cultural Brilliance." [1] [4] [5]
The traveling exhibition included 142 objects from the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. [5] UMMA was the only North American venue to host it, and a team of curators from the Hermitage traveled to Ann Arbor for the duration of the show. [1] [6] [7] [8] It was the first large-scale partnership between the Hermitage and a North American university museum, and negotiations took about three years to complete. [1] The exhibition was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company. [1] James Christen Steward (a professor of art history) was UMMA's director at the time. [1] [8] [9] [10] [11]
The exhibition was organized chronologically by the Romanov tsars who collected the pieces, all the way from the founding of St. Petersburg in 1703 through the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. [1] [9] [5] A large percentage of pieces were collected by Catherine the Great. It also included seven pieces collected by Nicholas II, the last Romanov tsar. [1]
Steward said of the exhibition, "The uneasy tension within the royal family grew out of a desire to be of their time and acknowledgment of democratic values amidst a fundamental distrust of the people. Nonetheless, this exhibit seeks to humanize a complex and tragic family history." [12]
The show included 142 objects, by approximately 80 different European (including French, English, Dutch, and German) artists and artisans. [9] [1] [12] It include paintings, sculptures, ceramics, porcelain, tapestry, and furniture. [12]
Each piece included was accompanied by a label explaining the lineage of the piece, including information about who acquired it and often some context about his or her reign. [13]
Notable pieces included: