Museum of Ts S

[tian79]

An article in Finnish about the exhibition in Lappeenranta. I translated the part how items gone missing from Tsarskoe Selo's palaces are retrieved.

http://www.esaimaa.fi/arkisto/vanhat/2004/06/01/kulttuuri/juttu1/sivu.html

Collection grows despite lack of funds

The exhibition is a good proof how objects are traced and regained. The collection of Tsarskoe Selo’s museum is completing constantly, though slowly.

-Just a couple of days ago we got a call from the Norwegian consulat. An emigrant had taken an ornament from Tsarskoe Selo with him to Norway and his grandson had inherited it. Now we got it back as a donation, Iraida Bott rejoys.

Similar strikes of luck of luck happens every now and then. A couple of years ago the museum got back court painter Michály Zichy’s watercolour paitings, which had traveled from Tsarkoe Selo first to Germany and then to the United States.

-During the war a German officer had takenthem with him from the wall of Nicholas II’s room. Later he gave the watercolours to a Russian émigré family living in Germany, because he thought that they belonged to Russians. Later the family moved to America, and the descendants of the family decided to donate the paintings to us.

Donations are important, because museum’s resources to get back objects are limited. Museum uses yearly about 100 000 dollars to acquisitions.

-All that money comes from our own activities, we don’t get any support for this, Bott says.

The people from Tsarskoe Selo are seldom seen as buyers in art and antique auctions.

-When an item comes to an auction, which has the Tsarkoe Selo palace mark, its price rises so high, we usually don’t have any possibilities to acquire it to the museum.

-Despite that we are happy to find out, via the auction, that the object is safe though we don’t have it.

[Antonio_P.Caballer]

This is so great!!!

Zichy´s floral paintings were in the Empress´mauve boudoir!!! I cannot believe they are again in Tsarskoe and could be placed again in that room, it´s simply a miracle.

As i wrote i remember Iraida telling me about a painting(another one) from the Alexander palace she had just recovered.

A great new!

[Antonio_P.Caballer]

Hello Joanna,

You can see them in the photo tour of the mauve room, view number 3, to the right.

[Antonio_P.Caballer]

I think(cannot tell you now for sure, it´s too late in Spain... the museum was in the Upper Bath pavillion. There´s no exhibition nowadays in this pavillion. I think i remember seing the building open for some reason but there was nothing to see inside, just bare walls.

Please correct me if i´m mistaken....

[BobAtchison]

I was there in 1992 - they had lots of things from the palace, including Alix's icon lamps in the shape of doves from the bedroom and also ikons from there.  They had this painting of Nicholas, Alix and Aleksey being blessed by Christ which came to the AP from the Winter Palace when the rooms of the family were closed down in the 20's.  It's a horrible painting, and it's not hard to see why Alix didn't like it.

When I was at the Ts museum they were unveiling a huge painting of the family by a modern artist.

The museum had been lodged in the chapel of the Catherine Palace until around 1990.  The people there were wonderful, very nice.

Bob

[ChristineM]

Bob

I heartily agree with your sentiments.   The staff in this museum is absolutely delightful.   They are enthusiastic and co-operative.   Here one is treated as a prized visitor - not just another number.   The museum suffers from being in the shadow of the Tsarskoe Selo Museum Preserve - the Catherine Palace and the, increasingly ignored, Alexander Palace.

In this Museum it is possible to find items and artefacts associated with the Romanov Family and Tsarksoe Selo which one cannot see anywhere else.

Visiting the musuem has other bonuses.   Situated in the heart of the old town it is possible to cross the road and shop in Pushkin's Gostiny Dvor for souvenirs where you pay a fraction of the price demanded at kiosks or major museum shops.   Behind Gostiny Dvor a daily market offers all the entertainment and fascination found in its French counterpart.   Not on the regular tourist route, here it is possible to experience the atmosphere of a typical Russian town.

Tsarskoe Selo and the Romanov Dynasty are inextricably linked.   Even today, strolling through the centre of the town one is aware of walking in the footsteps of OTMA.   The girls wrote of how they relished walking into town.   It is remarkable how little it has changed

tsaria

[Lanie]

Where is this museum--in Pushkin/Ts. S., I assume?

[ChristineM]

Dear Lanie

The Museum is in the town square only a few minutes walk from the Catherine Palace.   If you ask for Gostiny Dvor' anyone will direct you.   When you arrive in the square, with your back to the main facade of Gostiny Dvor, the Museum is a few yards down the street on your left (can't remember the name, I'm sorry).

tsaria'