DOC North Carolina Troops; 1861–1865: A Roster; Volume 2: Cavalry by From Louis H Manarin in History

Description

Among the most important private art collections ever created were those of Imperial Russia. Catherine the Great; guided by Voltaire; amassed treasures on a Herculean scale; laying the basis for what is today the Russian State Hermitage. Favorite courtiers built palaces of unprecedented magnificence in St. Petersburg and Moscow for their vast collections of paintings; antiquities; and decorative arts. In a lively and anecdotal text; Oleg Neverov reassembles these now-legendary private collections-which; after the 1917 Revolution; were dispersed among the Hermitage; Pushkin; and Tretiakov museums; sold to foreign museums; or spirited abroad. Represented here are works that once belonged to such famed aristocratic families as the Stroganovs and Yussupovs; to the merchant princes Mamontov and Tenischeva; and to the legendary Morozov and Schukin families; the largest purchasers of the early works of Picasso; Matisse; and Braque. Here; portraits of the collectors; period photography; and architectural drawings and watercolors; along with beautiful reproductions of the artworks and texts drawn from the latest research in Russian archives; bring this long-gone era and its treasures back to life. AUTHOR BIO: Oleg Neverov; a Russian art historian; is the keeper of the department of antiquities; Russian State Hermitage. He is the author of catalogues; monographs; and nearly 200 articles. Mikhail Piotrovsky is director of the Russian State Hermitage. Nicholas Romanov is head of the former imperial family.