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archduchessofnowhere · 3 years

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The Collection Tatiana Zubov, or how I found a tiny bit of Imperial Russia in Buenos Aires

I don't know about you, but I haven't set a foot in my college ever since the pandemic broke out. Since the beginning of 2020 I only had virtual classes, which means that I hadn't seen my college friends for almost two years. But now we are all fully vaccinated, and the cases had been dropping for a while, so we decided to finally meet up again. When choosing where to go, one of my friends suggested the Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo (National Museum of Decorative Art), which is in the City of Buenos Aires, and we all agreed. I've never heard of this Museum before, but it looked like a beautiful place, and I just love going to museums. Also, the entrance is free, so that's a nice plus.

The Museum is also an actual palace.

The Errázuriz Palace was the home of the Chilean diplomatic Matías Errázuriz and his Argentinian wife Josefina de Alvear. It was designed by the French architect René Sergent (though the couple intervened a lot in this process) and built during the decade of the 1910s. The Errázuriz-Alvear only lived twenty years in the mansion, and in 1937 it was acquired by the Argentinian State; it has been a museum ever since. Because of this, it's the only French-style mansion open to the general public in Buenos Aires.

Via National Museum of Decorative Art

When in a place of such lavishness you can either to be lowkey horrified at the wealth of the early 20th century Argentinian aristocracy (Really? A palace for only four people?? Built during WWI??), or to imagine that you are the protagonist of a period drama film. I chose both, in that order. I was absorbed in my third fantasy in which I was a Jane Austen heroine wandering around my romantic interest's manor, when suddenly this dude showed up:

Nicholas I of Russia, by George Dawe, early 19th Century (National Museum of Decorative Art)

If you follow me here you know that the Wittelsbachs and Habsburgs are my main interest, but I also have a soft spot for the Romanovs, specially the ones from the 18th and early 19th century. So of course I was glad to find a "familiar" face in this place. And I also thought it was a bit strange. How did the portrait of a Romanov emperor ended up there?

We kept walking through the museum, visiting the different rooms (part of the palace was kept as it was in the times its original owners lived in it), and then we entered into this room:

Via National Museum of Decorative Art

Yep, that's Catherine the Great over there. She's a lot of times in this room. And not only her: Emperor Paul, Emperor Alexander I and his Empress Elizaveta, Grand Duke Konstantin and many minor princes and princesses were here too. I was on my area here, and went around the room talking about Russian and fashion history to my friends (yes I'm annoying when I like something, sorry). But now my curiosity was skyrocketing. European art it's not unusual in Argentinian museums. Russian art it's rare though. And Imperial portraits? To me, until that moment, it was unheard of. How did all these portraits ended up here?

Throughout that room, and in other rooms too, there were two names that kept popping up: "Tatiana Zubov" and "Countess Rosario Zubov". Rosario isn't a Russian name at all, so I thought that there had to be a a story there. When I got back home that night I immediately looked up who these women were, and what was their connection to the Museum, and to Russia. It turns out, there was indeed a story, one that went back to the times of Catherine the Great. So how did a collection of 18th and 19th century Russian and European art ended up in a Museum in Buenos Aires?

Our story starts in 18th century Russia with Count Alexander Nikolayevich Zubov, an impoverished nobleman who had four sons and two daughters. Out of them, the most known is Count Platon Alexandrovitch Zubov, who went down in history for being the last lover of Empress Catherine the Great, from 1789 until her death in 1796. During his seven years as a favorite Platon and his family raised in rank and fortune, but they fell out of favor after Catherine's son, Emperor Paul, whom the Zubovs opposed, came into power. But Paul's time in power didn't last for too long: five years into his reign, he became extremely unpopular amongst the nobility and soon a faction of officers decided that he needed to go. And that meant that he needed to die.

Like the rest of the family, Platon's eldest brother Nikolay had been greatly benefited by his brother's relantionship with Catherine, and had also suffered the lost of favor during Paul's reign. According to Wikipedia, out of the six children of Count Alexander Zubov, four actively participated in the conspiracy to murder Emperor Paul. The night of March 23 of 1801, a group of dismissed officers broke into the newly finished Mikhailovsky Castle where Paul was staying. Platon and his brother Nikolay were amongst them. The plotters tried to make the Emperor sign his abdication, but he resisted. Nikolay was the first to struck Paul, and soon the rest of the plotters followed him strangling and beating the Emperor to death (according to witnesses, Platon just watched). Then, Nikolay went to look for Paul's son and heir, Alexander, who was also in the palace where the assassination took place, announced him that he was now the Emperor, and added "Time to grow up! Go and rule!"

Nikolay was married to Natalia Alexandrovna Suvorova, the only daughter of Count Alexander Suvorov, and they had a son named Alexander. He in turn married Natalia Pavlovna Scherbatova and they had a son, Platon, perhaps named after his infamous great-uncle. Platon married Countess Vera Sergeevna Plautina, and they had a son named Sergei. This Count Sergei was married in 1906 first to Countess Elizaveta Alexandrovna Scheremeteva, and they had two children. For some reason unknown to me, they divorced in 1916. And then the Russian Revolution happened, and like many aristocratic families, the Zubovs scatered into exile all over the world.

It was during this period that Sergei met one of the richest Argentinian heiresses of the time, Rosario Schiffer de Larrechea, the young widow of an Italian count. They married in Geneva in 1922, and a year later their only child, Tatiana, was born. The family divided their time between Geneva, where the Zubovs had a mansion, and Buenos Aires, where they ended up settling down. During these years Sergei's art collection grew as he added more items to the ones he had inherited from his family. But tragedy struck when in 1957, aged 33 years-old, Tatiana met an untimely death in a car crash in Uruguay. Two years later, Rosario created the Foundation Tatiana Zubov in Geneva and donated half of their art collection to be displayed in a museum with the same name that still exists and you can visit. Sergei died seven years after his daughter in Buenos Aires, aged 82 years-old. And in 1977 Rosario donated the other half of their collection to the Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo in the memory of her daughter. What happened to the Countess after that, I don't know: I couldn't find any more information about her.

Portrait of Countess Rosario Schiffer de Larrechea de Zubov, by Zinaida Serebryakova, 1939 (National Museum of Decorative Art) // Portrait of Tatiana Zubov, by Marie Thèrese Geraldy, 1929 (National Museum of Decorative Art) // Portrait of Count Sergei Platonovitch Zubov, by Giovanni Boldini, 1913 (The State Russian Museum)

The portraits of Rosario and Tatiana are two of the main items of the museum. Even amongst Empresses and Emperors, their images stand up and leave an impression in you. Meanwhile this portrait of Sergei ended up in his homeland in The State Russian Museum, thousands of kilometers away from the pictures that immortalized his wife and daughter.

There are over two hundred miniatures and dozens of portraits, mainly from Russia but also from France, England and other places of Europe. Given the images limit of Tumblr posts and the fact that the camera of my cellphone sucks and therefore the quality of the photos that I took it's total crap, I'll limit to the most famous sitters of this paintings. Also because I'm an idiot I didn't write down the names of all the painters of this portraits, so sorry about that.

Empress Catherine was all over the place on this collection. I choose to believe that she personally gave this images of herself to her boyfriend Platon.

If any of you follow me on my main you'll know that I've been absolutely OBSESSED with The Great since the second season dropped two weeks ago, so casually stumbling with the actual Catherine while I was meeting up with my friends was kinda crazy to me (in the first picture she's clearly judging me for shipping the show's Catherine and Peter with a burning passion).

Emperor Paul // Catherine the Great // Count Platon Alexandrovitch Zubov (I've been trying to decipher the artists names but the sign it's unreadable).

Yep, the portraits are hanged next to each other in this order (you can see them in one of the pictures of the room I put above). Sometimes a family it's you, your mom, and her lover who will literally team up with a bunch of guys to kill you in a couple of years.

Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Empress Elizaveta // Alexander I of Russia (when a Grand Duke) // Grand Duke Konstantin of Russia

The first picture it's the worst one that I took because it's moved and I didn't realize this until I was at my house. It's what happens when you take pictures while excitedly explaining the line of succesion of the Russian throne in the 19th century I guess.

Not all were Romanovs though. The Bonapartes were here too!

Empress Josephine // Emperor Napoleon // Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland // Empress Marie Louise. All by Jean-Baptiste Isabey, early 19th century.

I had a great time at the museum mainly because I was with friends that were willing to listening to me rambling about Romanovs and 18th and 19th century fashion (thanks for putting up with me guys), but also because it's a beautiful place, with an almost hidden small treasure of Imperial Russia. Originally built for the élite, the doors of this palace are now open to anyone who wishes to enter, so if you ever have the chance to go to the City of Buenos Aires, do consider visiting it. It's definetly worth your time.

SOURCES: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

#I went this tuesday btw - it's just that only now I finished writing this #idk if anyone will find this interesting/actually read it but I wanted to try something different for a change #sorry that I relied so much on Wikipeadia when talking about the Zubovs and the conspiracy against paul #but also this was literally a one night research whose sole purpose was to discover how they ended up with these stuff #also I'll def go back with a better camera in the future #museo nacional de arte decorativo #house of romanov #imperial russia #catherine the great #count platon alexandrovitch zubov #count nikolay alexandrovitch zubov #paul i of russia #alexander i of russia #empress elizaveta alexeyevna (louise of baden)#grand duke konstantin of russia #count sergei platonovitch zubov #rosario schiffer de larrechea #tatiana zubov #napoleon bonaparte #empress josephine #empress marie louise #hortense de beauharnais

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