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Prince Anatole Demidoff’s Journey through Imperial Russia

Sunday, June 6th 2021

by Brice Langlois

ANDRÉ DURAND (Amfreville-la-Mivoie, 1807 – Paris, 1867).

"Voyage en Russie du Prince Anatole de Demidoff", ca. 1839-1848

A set of ninety-three drawings on tracing paper by Durand depicting the Travel to Russia supported by Prince Anatole de Demidoff's, ca. 1839-1848. Eighty-nine drawings presented in gilded stucco frames.

Height 28 cm. Width 45.5 cm. (estimated average).
Frontispieces: Height 67.5 cm. Width 52.5 cm. Height 41 cm. Width 29 cm.

Exhibition: « Anatole Demidoff. Voyage en Russie au XIXe siècle. Entre art et diplomatie » at the Centre spirituel et culturel orthodoxe russe, Paris, September 26, 2017- October 13, 2017.

Download a list of the drawings presented at the 2017 Exhibition

Bibliography :
- "Voyage pittoresque et archéologique en Russie exécuté en 1839 sous la direction de M. Anatole de Demidoff ; dessins faits d’après nature et lithographiés par André Durand", Paris, Gihaut frères, 1842.
- "Album du voyage pittoresque et archéologique en Russie par le Havre, Hambourg, Lübeck, Saint-Pétersbourg, Moscou, Nijni-Nowgorod, Yaroslaw et Kasan exécuté sous la direction du prince Anatole de Demidoff, membre de l’académie impériale des sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg et de l’Institut de France (Académie des Sciences)", Paris, Ernest Bourdin in Paris, ca.1848.
- Elsa Cau, «"Anatole Demidoff et ses voyages pittoresques" au Centre culturel Russe », Connaissance des arts, Oct. 6, 2017 (4 drawings reprinted: nr. 23, 46, 66 et 77).

The 2017 exhibition file with all the drawings




Born in 1812, Prince Anatole Demidoff was the youngest son of an eminent Russian family ennobled by Tsar Peter the Great. Since the end of the 17th century, the Demidoff family had operated iron, copper, gold and silver ore mines in Siberia and the Ural Mountains. They also managed ironworks and manufactures providing weapons for the imperial troops. Keenly attached to their home country, the Demidoffs were also Francophiles, cosmopolitans and diplomats. Anatole's father, Nicolas Demidoff (1773-1828), was Ambassador to France during the First Empire. A true patriot, he returned to Russia in 1812 to raise and command an infantry unit during the battle of Moskova.

On November 1, 1840, Anatole Demidoff, who had a short career as a diplomat in Paris, married Emperor Napoleon I’s niece, Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, to whom he dedicated this work. He was a great art lover whose collections are nowadays scattered between the Wallace Collection in London, where most of his possessions are now hosted and an exhibition in his honor was held in 1994, and the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York City.

Thanks to a series of articles he wrote from 1838 to 1840 under the pseudonym Ni-Tag in the Journal des Débats, he contributed to the French people’s discovery of Russia. In 1837, he sponsored a first trip to southern Russia and Crimea inspired by Count de Choiseul Gouffier’s Voyage pittoresque en Grèce which was written sixty years earlier. Four volumes relating this trip were published in 1841 and an album of drawings by Auguste Raffet was added in 1848. This entire body of work was dedicated to Tsar Nicolas I, despite the sovereign being hostile to its publication at a time of high diplomatic tension between Russia and France that led to a war against each other in 1853.


Prince Demidoff financed a second trip through imperial Russia, on which André Durand embarked on June 1, 1839. Following an itinerary designed by his sponsor, the artist went through various historical cities including all of the capital cities of Russia except Kiev. Leaving from Le Havre, he first traveled to the German cities of Hamburg and Lübeck, crossed the Baltic Sea and disembarked in St. Petersburg. The drawings he made in the “Venice of the North” reflect the modernity of the city wanted by Peter the Great, who turned it into a new European capital. There, Durand drew the Church of the Citadel as well as other emblematic monuments such as the Imperial Palace, the Academy of Fine Arts and the Observation Tower.

In Novgorod, Russia’s capital city from 859 to 882, Durand enjoyed seeing monuments with simple facades and built following an apparent logic. The city was a stark contrast to Moscow, which he reached on August 20. Despite being partially gutted by fire in 1812, the City of Tsars remained a requisite travel stop. The architectural richness of its church domes, such as those of the Izmailovo church or the Devitchie-Polé monastery, was completely unheard of in France. There, Duran made a drawing of the Kremlin from the Peter the Great Bridge, amongst others.

André Durand continued his journey to the East at the beginning of September. He stopped in Vladimir (Russia’s capital city from 1169 to 1329) then in Nizhny Novgorod, the "new city on the banks of the lower Volga River" that was founded by Yuri II of Vladimir in 1228. In Kazan, he drew baroque cathedrals, such as the Annunciation Cathedral built in the 14th century inside the Kremlin fortress. At the end of September, Durand sailed up the Volga River, stopping in Kostroma, a city rebuilt by Catherine II in the shape of her fan. He then went on to Yaroslaw, where Pavel Nikolayevich Demidoff had founded a scientific school. On his way back, the artist made five drawings of views of the Troitsa Monastery built by St. Sergius in the 14th century before returning to France via St. Petersburg, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Denmark.

Having previously made many drawings during his extensive travels in France - through Normandy, Auvergne, the Alps, Lyon or Chartres - André Durand had demonstrated his abilities in representing a variety of landscapes such as the countryside, mountains or towns. Both his drawing and lithographic printing skills were the reason why Demidoff entrusted him with this mission. Our drawings on tracing paper pasted to paper are probably not the ones he made on the spot, but rather the ones that were used for transfer onto lithographic limestone before printing in two tones. From 1842 to 1848, Durand received the help of Raffet, who was charged with inserting characters into the latter’s drawings. Their work was first published under the title “Excursion pittoresque”, then “Voyage pittoresque”, first by Gihaut and then Ernest Bourdin who also published Demidoff’s “Voyage en Russie méridionale”. The evolution of this work’s dedication is also noteworthy: while the first frontispiece is dedicated to Princess Bonaparte, Demidoff’s wife, her name is crossed out on the second one. The couple had indeed separated in 1847, leading to a new dedication when the prints were reissued. Both versions of the frontispiece are included here.

Our set of ninety-three drawings is in line with a Russian aristocrat’s benevolence and taste for the arts. An eminent collector and patron of the arts, Demidoff bridged the gap between the graphic arts and literature while showing his beloved country to foreigners’ eyes. Unlike the rest of his princely collection, scattered among the greatest Anglo-Saxon museums, these drawings form a unique set, which is truly remarkable for items of such prestigious origin. Their exhibition in Paris in 2017 is further proof that any contemporary collector worth their salt should not hesitate when given the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of such an august predecessor, on the path to eternal Russia.

Watch a movie in English: "Anatole Demidoff – A Journey through Russia in the 19th Century: Art as Cultural Diplomacy"
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