Sergei Shchukin

Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin (Russian: Серге́й Ива́нович Щу́кин; 27 May 1854 – 10 January 1936) was a Russian businessman who became an art collector, mainly of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art.

Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin was born on 27 May 1854 in Moscow, one of ten children of Ivan Vassilievitch Shchukin, a self-made Moscow merchant, and his wife Ekaterina Shchukin, née Botkin, the daughter of an established family of merchants. I.V. Shchukin and Sons Trading Company became one of the largest manufacturing and wholesale companies in Russia.

There were several art collectors in the Shchukin family. Sergei's brother Pyotr Shchukin built an important collection of Russian ancient art and artifacts and owned several impressionist masterpieces, while his brother Dimitri Shchukin assembled "Moscow's best collection of Old Masters" that eventually entered the Pushkin Museum. Another brother, Ivan, also collected art.

Shchukin made his first art purchases following a trip to Paris in 1897, when he bought his first Monet. He later bought numerous works to a total of 258 paintings decorating the walls of his palatial home in Moscow.

By 1914, Shchukin owned thirteen Monets, including the iconic Lady in the garden and the smaller but complete version of "Picnic", three Renoir, eight Cézanne, including famous "Carnival" (Mardi Gras), four Van Gogh (including the portrait of Dr Rey but the most famous Van Gogh in Russia "Prison Courtyard" and "Red Vineyard" were purchased by Shchukin's friend and competitor, Ivan Abramovitch Morozov), sixteen Gauguin of the Tahitian period, which were hanged in his dining room in the manner of an orthodox iconostasis), seven Henri Rousseau, sixteen Derain, eight Albert Marquet, two Dethomas... Shchukin was particularly notable for his long association with Matisse, who decorated his mansion and created one of his iconic paintings, La Danse, specially for Shchukin. La Danse is commonly recognized as "a key point of (Matisse's) career and in the development of modern painting".Henri Matisse created one of his major works La Danse for Shchukin as part of a two painting commission, the other important painting being Music, 1910. An earlier version of La Danse (1909) is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

...
Wikipedia