Forgotten Polish treasures on show in Moscow

Polish art at Pushkin Museum

The treasures had languished in the collections of Moscow's Pushkin Museum for many decades, but over 200 have been dusted down for the current exhibition.

The works include pieces by some of Poland's most celebrated artists, including Stanislaw Wyspianski, Jozef Mehoffer, Wojciech Weiss and Teodor Axentowicz.

Warsaw art historian Dorota Folga-Januszewska got on the trail of the collection while curating another Polish exhibition in Moscow in 2009.

“It's quite a long and convoluted history,” she told Polish Radio.

“It turns out that up until the outbreak of the October Revolution [1917], at least three Polish collectors were working in Moscow.”

One of those was Pawel Ettinger, an art historian and bibliophile who lived in the city from 1889 to 1948.

He ultimately donated over 10,000 items from his collection to the Pushkin Museum, and by the time of his death he was an honorary custodian at the institution.

Poland's official cultural institute, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, has hailed the collection as an “extraordinary record of Polish culture and history.”

An agreement has already been signed with the Pushkin Museum allowing for the exhibition to travel to Poland in the near future. (nh)


Source: IAR