Elena Ris
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
The gallery of the Western European painting, which belonged to the Berlin merchant Gotzkowsky and moved to the collection of Empress Catherine II in 1764, is the oldest one in the Hermitage today.
Today many paintings from Gotzkowsky’s collection are still in the Hermitage, but some of them have been dispersed to different museums of the world.
The collection consisted of 317 paintings by Western European artists of the 15th–18th centuries of various schools. Among them the Renaissance’s masterpieces are the most remarkable.
The sale inventory of Gotzkowsky brought to Catherine II included the works of the great masters of the European Renaissance: Raphael, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Holbein. Today part of attributions is not confirmed. Scholars changed the authorship and the school attribution for some of the paintings.
The report presents a step-by-step research into the masterpieces. The author has determined the whole list of paintings that previosly belonged to this collection.
Today the paintings from the first Hermitage collection are found in more than 25 collections of the world. The report provides the survey of these works and gives examples of revised attributions. For instance, Gotzkowsky sold one item as a work by Veronese, but today its authorship is altered.
We believe it’s vital to study the Gotzkowsky’s collection taking into account the present views on the attribution of the Renaissance art and the determination of the original provenance of the works kept in modern museums.