But perhaps the decisive factor in the formation of the Museum at its early stage was the contribution of outstanding eighteenth-century art experts. Catherine II succeeded in enlisting for her museum the services of the philosopher and art critic Dénis Diderot, the encyclopedist Melchior Grimm, the sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet, and the collector François Tronchin. Yet one can hardly overestimate the role played in augmenting the stocks of the Hermitage by Prince Dmitry Golitsyn, one of the most enlightened men of his time and Russian ambassador to Paris and later The Hague. Suffice it to mention that the Crozat collection was bought on Golitsyn’s initiative, through the mediation of Diderot and Tronchin, and that it was thanks to Golitsyn that the Hermitage came into the possession of the Cobenzl collection, a number of paintings from the Jean de Jullienne collection, and many other pictures. Some of the Hermitage acquisitions had a rather peculiar history. Thus, for example,
Another factor which contributed to the growth of the Museum’s collections was the establishment of links with active contemporary artists. This helped the Hermitage obtain works by well-known masters of the second half of the eighteenth century:
Apart from the palace collection of the tsars, many large private collections came into being in Russia at that time. Although inferior to that of the Hermitage, they nevertheless often contained first-rate works of art. Some of them entered the Museum as far back as the late eighteenth century, following the death of their owners, such as the collection of Potiomkin-Tavrichesky, of Lanskoi — owner of the famous collection once formed by Count Baudoin, Friedrich’s court banker — and of Teplov; but most found their way into the Hermitage only after the October Revolution.
It should be pointed out, however, that the interest which Russian society evinced in art was not limited to painting alone. The imperial collection embraced diverse works of art, some housed in the Winter Palace, others in different town and country residencies, and was constantly enriched with specimens of Western European sculpture and applied arts. While
The acquisition, in 1785, of the Lyde Browne collection in England turned out to be especially fortunate. The collection, composed in Italy almost exclusively of relics of antique art, also contained some Western European sculptures. It was with the Lyde Browne collection that Michelangelo’s
The superb collection of Abbot Filippo Farsetti, a patron of the arts from Venice, had travelled a long way before it reached the Museum. Its finest items were terra-cotta