The exhibition “Predecessors of Pavel Tretyakov: Fyodor Pryanishnikov and Kozma Soldatenkov,” dedicated to two significant collectors of Russian art of the 19th century, continues to operate in the Engineering Building of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. They preserved for posterity the works of Russian artists, who, if not for them, would have had no one to sell their paintings to: “at least throw them into the Neva,” as the painter Alexander Rizzoni argued. Weekend talks about Moscow industrialist Kozma Soldatenkov, who spent 5 million of his 8 million fortune on charity, including supporting culture and art.
Kozma Terentyevich Soldatenkov simply turned out to be in the right place at the right time. In the middle of the 19th century, when his collection was created, the aristocracy was losing its position in society, and industrialists and businessmen came to the forefront of history. As he writes art critic Marfa Kuznetsova in the article “Kozma Soldatenkov (1818–1901) and his collection in the context of the artistic life of Moscow in the second half of the 19th century,” the old St. Petersburg collections gradually lost their importance, their place was taken by Moscow ones, which belonged to representatives of the merchant class. Among the “new Russians” of Soldatenkov’s era, collecting became a common way of investing capital, but not only that.
Text about Fyodor Pryanishnikov read here.
Moscow capitalists of the 19th century often perceived their activities not as a way to make money, but as the fulfillment of a mission assigned to them from above – to benefit society. They considered wealth to be a gift from God, received for use, for which they would later ask, and the prosperity of the state was associated with the development of science, art, and education, so they were actively involved in charity work and made large-scale investments in culture.
These convictions were strongest among the Old Believers, to which Kozma Soldatenkov belonged. After the death of the entrepreneur, a free hospital for the poor (Soldatenkovskaya, now the scientific and clinical center named after S.P. Botkin) and a vocational school “for free education there for male children … in various crafts related to technical production” were built in Moscow at his expense. Part of the funds bequeathed to charity went towards scholarships for the most capable and neediest students at Moscow University. But Soldatenkov’s main merit to future generations is his collection, which in the Rumyantsev Museum, where it ended up after the owner’s death, was valued at 500 thousand rubles – with the average salary of a worker or employee being 20–30 rubles. per month, minister – 1500 rubles. per month.
The museum received 258 paintings and 17 sculptures, including works by Ivan Aivazovsky, Alexei Bogolyubov, Karl Bryullov, Viktor Vasnetsov, Mikhail Klodt, Ivan Kramskoy, Vladimir Makovsky and many others. After 1917, the Rumyantsev Museum was disbanded, and the Soldatenkov collection was distributed among museums of the USSR.
The “boy” behind his father’s counter
Kozma Soldatenkov was born on October 10, 1818 in the Moscow province. His grandfather and father were textile manufacturers, engaged in the production of silk fabrics, first in the village of Prokunino – now the Pavlovsky Posad area, east of the capital, then in Moscow. Kozma’s grandfather, Yegor Vasilyevich, was a merchant of the second guild, his father, Terenty Yegorych, had already transferred to the first. From a young age, Kozma worked in the shop of his father, a very wealthy man. After his death in the early 1850s, he became the full owner of all assets.
Soldatenkov was a new type of entrepreneur. And although he did not receive a systematic education – according to the recollections of Kozma Soldatenkov’s great-niece Serafima Rakhmanova, a frequent guest in his house, “he was taught only by a sexton for copper money from a Slavic book” – he understood the logic of business at the level of intuition. In 1856, he leased out the factory, and he himself became a co-founder and shareholder of many companies, including the Moscow Fire Insurance Company, the Moscow-Ryazan Railway Society with a capital of 15 million rubles, the Krenholm Manufactory in Estland (now the territory of Estonia), which brought huge profits, as well as several banks that provided loans to textile manufacturers.
He was so rich that his contemporary publicist Alexei Mitrofanov wrote about him: “When the tsar’s manifesto on the abolition of serfdom was published in 1861, a rumor immediately spread throughout the country, saying that in fact the tsar had not signed anything like that, but simply the generous Soldatenkov bought all the peasants from the landowners and set them free.” A description of Soldatenkov, left by Pavel Tretyakov’s daughter, Vera Ziloti, has been preserved: “He always wore a gray frock coat, a gray cape and a gray felt hat with large brims in the summer. He was short, stocky, wide, with an ugly, but intelligent, expressive face… He wore a small beard and rather long hair, combed back; he felt great strength, physical and mental, often found among Russian Old Believers.”
“Evidence of Existing Evil”
Soldatenkov began collecting his collection in the late 1840s. The attitude in society towards her was ambiguous. Thus, critic Vladimir Stasov wrote in his work “Twentieth Anniversary of the Itinerants”: “Before the galleries of P.M. Tretyakov, we already had the Pryanishnikov and Soldatenkov galleries. But what is the difference between them and him! For those in the galleries, indifference, omnivorousness, one-sided and poor tastes reign, while in his gallery there is a broad historical view, extensive frameworks and horizons, a choice enlightened by artistic thought and understanding.” Not everyone, however, shared this opinion. In 1853, art critic Nikolai Ramazanov described it as “a small but remarkable gallery.” His colleague was supported by art critic Alexander Andreev, who called it “a significant collection of works by our artists,” “one of the best collections of Russian paintings in Moscow,” “collected with great taste and knowledge of the matter.” Critic and publicist Pyotr Boborykin considered Soldatenkov’s collection “a very valuable art collection.”
Among Soldatenkov’s first acquisitions were Nikolai Lomtev’s painting “Angels Announcing Heavenly Punishment for Sodom and Gomorrah” and a self-portrait of Vasily Tropinin. Then he became interested in the work of Russian artists working in Rome. Once there in 1852, he met Alexander Ivanov, who began to help him select works for the collection and in 1858 sold “the large sketch closest to the painting” “The Appearance of Christ to the People.” Soldatenkov not only paid an incredible 5 thousand rubles for it, but also suggested that the artist put the money at interest, about which Ivanov wrote to his brother: “I can get the money now, but I give it to him at interest, and he gives 6 per 100.”
Soldatenkov was equally attracted to academic painting on historical subjects (“Head of a Cardinal” by Alexander Rizzoni, “Vespers at the Chertozinians in Rome” by Sergei Postnikov), and the Russian theme with its inherent social motives. “From the subtle satire of Pavel Fedotov (“The Breakfast of an Aristocrat,” “The Widow.”—Editor’s note), the collector already in the 1860s moved on to the accusatory genre of Vasily Perov,” writes Marfa Kuznetsova in article “Gallery of Russian Artists” Kozma Soldatenkov (1818–1901): on the question of the origins of the collector’s worldview and the peculiarities of his collection.” “He buys such works by the artist as “Tea drinking in Mytishchi near Moscow” and “Sermon in a village,” in which the master lists in detail, in the words of art critic Mikhail Allenov, “evidence of existing evil.”
In the 1850s, Soldatenkov became a book publisher. He did not count on profit, setting educational goals for himself. He published books on economics and history, domestic and foreign classics, including Koltsov, Nekrasov, Turgenev, and published a 9-volume volume of William Shakespeare. I have always attached great importance to the high-quality preparation of books for printing, while trying to make them affordable.
Civil marriage
Soldatenkov was a man of broad views, including when it came to family relationships. For many years he was in a civil marriage with the Frenchwoman Clémence Karlovna Debuy. In the Russian Empire, it would be very difficult for an Old Believer and a Catholic to get married. To do this, both would have to change their faith, since only Orthodox Christians could enter into a church marriage.
In 1862, Kozma Terentyevich built a one-story mansion for his beloved on Sverchkov Lane. His own house, where there was a collection of paintings and sculptures, was located on Myasnitskaya, 37. Since 1865, Soldatenkov also owned the rich Kuntsevo estate, which previously belonged to the Naryshkins – now it is on the territory of Filevsky Park – where he organized bright holidays for friends with gourmet dinners, performances and fireworks.
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Clémence Debouy called her husband Kuzey and cared for him tenderly – although they did not have a common language of communication. But there was a son, Ivan Baryshev (he received his last name from his godfather as an illegitimate), later a popular satirist and playwright, who wrote under the pseudonym Myasnitsky – after the name of the street where he lived in his father’s house. His humorous stories from the life of merchant Moscow were a great success among readers.
Kozma Soldatenkov died in his Kuntsevo estate in 1901. The coffin with his body, accompanied by a crowd, was carried in their arms for several hours to the Rogozhskoye cemetery. The grave has not survived. Since 1991, there has been a monument to the philanthropist near the administrative building of the Botkin Hospital.
The exhibition “Predecessors of Pavel Tretyakov: Fyodor Pryanishnikov and Kozma Soldatenkov” at the Tretyakov Gallery will last until October 11.
Since June 12, the Engineering Building of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow has been hosting the exhibition “Predecessors of Pavel Tretyakov: Fyodor Pryanishnikov and Kozma Soldatenkov,” at which for the first time the collections of the famous collector’s older contemporaries are presented in their entirety. Weekend talks about the life of the head of the postal department of the Russian Empire, Fyodor Pryanishnikov, and his interest in painting.
