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: