Museums: Inter-museum art project mounted in Moscow

On December 14 2010 the A.S. Pushkin State Museum in Moscow opened an Inter-museum art project called “V.I. Hau. Russian Portrait”.

Not only is V.I. Hau a “portrait chronicler” of the epoch of the Emperor Nikolai I, but also that of Alexander II. He painted numerous watercolor portraits of members of the Emperor’s House, among them are the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Grand Duchesses Maria, Olga and Alexandra, Grand Dukes Alexander, Nikolai, Mikhail and Constantine – children of the Emperor Nikolai I, portraits of the Grand Duchess Yelena Pavlovna, Dukes of Oldenburg and Leuchtenberg. He also created portraits of many contemporaries of A.S. Pushkin.

The A.S. Pushkin State Museum, initiator of the new project “V.I. Hau. Russian Portrait”, managed to reveal and put on show at the artist’s first monographic exhibition about 150 of his works, many of them have been put on display for the first time. To successfully face the challenge the museum was supported by over 20 leading Moscow, St. Petersburg and regional museums, including the Historical Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the State Hermitage Museum, the A.S. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.

Portraits of the exhibition have been arranged in the chronological order: early watercolors and pencil drawings of the 1830s, lots of works dating back to the 1840–1850s – the time when V.I. Hau reached zenith of his mastery as a portraitist – and a small complex of works spanning the 1860–1890s, which shed light on the late period of his work.