Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov

Pavel Mikhaylovich Tretyakov (Russian: Па́вел Миха́йлович Третьяко́в; December 27, 1832 – December 16, 1898) was a Russian businessman, patron of art, collector, and philanthropist who gave his name to the Tretyakov Gallery and Tretyakov Drive in Moscow. His brother Sergei Tretyakov was also a famous patron of art and a philanthropist.

Tretyakov was taught at home. In the first half of 1850 he inherited his father's business and built up a profitable trade in flax, linen processing and the sale of textiles.

Together with other Moscow businessmen he acted as the founder of the Moscow merchant bank (becoming one of its heads), the Moscow commercial and industrial company, some other large firms. He amassed a considerable fortune (4.4 million rubles), consisting of real estate (5 houses in Moscow), securities, money and bills.

Tretyakov started to collect art in 1854 at the age of 22; his first purchase was 10 canvases by Old Dutch masters. He laid down for himself the aim of creating a Russian . In his collection Tretyakov included the most valuable and remarkable products, first of all the contemporaries, from 1870 - mainly members of the society of circulating art exhibitions (Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnyh hudozhestvennyh vystavok or Peredvizhniki, Передвижники in Russian). He bought paintings at exhibitions and directly from artists' studios, sometimes he bought the whole series: in 1874 he acquired V.V. Vereschagin's "Turkestan series" (13 pictures, 133 figures and 81 studies), in 1880 - his "Indian series" (78 studies). In his collection there were over 80 studies by Alexander Ivanov. In 1885 Tretyakov bought 102 studies by V.D. Polenov painted by the artist during journeys across Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Palestine. He got also acquired Vasnetsov’s collection of the sketches made during work above lists in the Kiev St Volodymyr's Cathedral. Tretyakov had the fullest collection of such artists as: V.G. Perov, I.N. Kramskoi, Ilya Repin, Vasily Surikov, I.I. Levitan, and Valentin Serov. Aspiring to show the beginnings and development of the domestic school of art , Tretyakov began to acquire pictures by masters of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries and landmarks of Old Russian painting. He also conceived the creation of a "Russian pantheon" - a portrait gallery of famous Russians. He commissioned especially for it portraits of figures of domestic culture from leading masters of this genre - N.N. Ge, Kramskoi, N.V. Nevrev, Perov, Repin.

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