“Preserving the Fruits of Enormous Labor…”. Russian and Western European Art from the Ilya Silberstein Collection

The exhibition is dedicated to the 110^th anniversary since Ilya Silberstein’s birth (1905–1988). Ilya Silberstein was a prominent researcher, art collector and public figure who initiated the creation of the Museum of Private Collections (today known as Private Collections Department) of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, where he has eventually donated his collection of paintings, prints and drawings by Russian and Western European artists of the 16^th – 20^th century. The Museum of Private Collections was founded in 1985 and opened its doors to visitors in 1994.

The exhibition will present paintings, prints and drawings created by masters of leading European schools: Luca Cambiaso, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Bosschaert, Leonaert Bramer, Jan van Bijlert, Bartholomaus Spranger, Anthelme François Lagrenée; works by Russian painters of the 18th – 20th century: Alexander Ivanov, Karl Bryullov, Vladimir Borovikovsky, Alexey Bogolyubov, Ilya Repin, Ivan Shishkin, Valentin Serov, Mikhail Vrubel. The exhibition will also feature an unusually extensive selection of artworks created by Western European artists for Russian collectors and art lovers – Pietro Gonzago, Giacomo Quarenghi, Jean-François Thomas de Tomon, academic drawings, Decembrists’ portraits by Nikolay Bestuzhev, works by the “Mir Iskusstva” group. The Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts will contribute to the display by providing complimentary printed materials with its archive documents.