Second Armory
Their names are mostly known only to historians. The exception is, perhaps, Alexey Ivanovich Musin-Pushkin. The same one thanks to which we know “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign…”. His name appears in passing in a literature textbook. And few people have heard of his good friend Pavel Fedorovich Karabanov (1767-1851). Meanwhile, this was a man whose collection of antiquities was compared by Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin, Moskovityanin’s editor and lover of ancient manuscripts, to the Armory Chamber. Viewers of the exhibition can see for themselves that this comparison is fair. Fortunately, a separate section of the exhibition is dedicated to the “rhymes” between the Karabanov and the Armory collections. The pans alone are worth it. A silver frying pan made from the utensils of Alexei Mikhailovich’s children, Peter, Ivan, Sophia, from the Armory. A similar, but gilded, frying pan belongs to Karabanov’s collection. The inscription says that it comes from the plates of another daughter of Alexei Mikhailovich – Feodosia.
Pavel Fedorovich’s collection contained more than two thousand items. Karabanov invested his entire life and, apparently, most of the dowry of his wife, née Princess Gagarina, in the collection. The collection was his favorite and only creation. He even used his own money to publish a description of it with lithographs of the exhibits based on AD Belyaeva’s drawings. The album does not include all the treasures in the collection. However, the “Description of the ancient monuments of ecclesiastical and civil life of the Russian Museum by P. Karabanov” – with gold reliefs, luxurious bindings and drawings – could compete in publication quality with the volumes of “Russian State Antiquities “. ”, which were published almost at the same time under the patronage of Nicholas I.
The emperor offered to purchase the collection from Karabanov through intermediaries. But she could not part with it during his lifetime and bequeathed it to the king free of charge as “the most august patron of archaeology.” After the death of Pavel Fedorovich, the entire collection was transported to the new Armory building. And after carrying out an inventory, some of the objects were sent to St. Petersburg, to the Hermitage, others were transferred to the Romanov Chambers and the Patriarchal Sacristy… The current exhibition is the first holistic presentation of the Karabanov collection after its death in 1851.
Story in robe
The passion for hunting for antiquities among Karabanov and many other nobles was born from the knowledge of their ancestry, from the feeling of blood connection with relatives who lived a couple of centuries earlier. Pavel Fedorovich was a man of the 18th century and grew up listening to stories about the reigns of Elizabeth and Anna Ioannovna, about the military adventures of Prince Potemkin, who was his relative on his mother’s side. Family stories were passed down to children along with family silver. In other words, a great story appeared to him under the guise of home, family, and comfort. This warm “homely note” will define the entire Karabanov collection. As one 19th-century historian wrote, “he was primarily interested in the household items of our ancestors, the sort of things with which we are most familiar with our venerable grandparents.”
Today we would say that Karabanov captured the “disappearing nature.” He recorded the stories of Catherine II’s ladies-in-waiting, collected manuscripts, books, autographs and portraits of celebrities: then they were monarchs, members of their families and statesmen… He bought antiques in stocks and at money changers, and at sales of famous collections . “You have to learn to buy old silver from Pavel Fedorovich Karabanov. Slowly, indifferently, excellent and cheap,” noted his contemporary. But the antique “hunter” could wear more than just silver. Russian icons, German cups, Parisian and London pocket watches, mother-of-pearl snuff boxes, Chinese cups and glasses, an Asian silver vessel in the shape of a horseman from the 9th century… His collection even included the golden feather of Catherine II, with the one who, according to legend, signed only “mercy for the damned.” In addition to the museum, Karabanov’s collection included a library, a collection of engravings and ancient coins.
But the attempt to reconstruct one of the first private Russian museums and its connection with the collections of the Moscow Kremlin Museums is only one of the themes of the exhibition. Another no less interesting one is about the connection between “history buffs” and the formation of professional historical science. At that time there was no dividing line between them. They were united not only by a love for antiquity and a passion for collecting, but also by a taste for working in the archive, for the study of ancient manuscripts and their publication. In this sense, the idea of the exhibition curator Elena Isaeva to display four more collections along with the Karabanov collection: Count Alexei Musin-Pushkin, Prince Nikolai Yusupov, Prince Mikhail Obolensky and Professor Mikhail Pogodin, seems successful.
Ah, it’s not difficult to fool him…
Finally, the history of private collections in Moscow allows us to address the issue of originals and forgeries. However, the most legendary fake is not here. Pogodin described how Anton Ivanovich Bardin, a seller of books and antiques, after the war of 1812, when many collections were destroyed, produced two copies of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” And he sold them to Musin-Pushkin, whose old manuscript “The Words…” burned in the fire, and AF Malinovsky, who even before the war was preparing the manuscript “The Word…” for publication. Today we would call it trolling. It is unlikely that Bardin would have counted on the fact that the two archivists who worked on the monument’s publication would not share the acquisition with each other. A mutual message of joy about the discovery automatically turned into a sincere admission that they had been deceived.
However, sales were more important than trolling. Anton Ivanovich’s business was large-scale and his products were found in many collections. At the exhibition you can see “The Life of Saints Boris and Gleb”, written according to the ancient letter of Bardin.
“Forgeries are interesting because they show the demand for objects and the preferences and tastes of collectors. It is clear that the person who created a copy or imitation of an antique item understood the demand for the item in the market. Forgeries are part of history of collecting, which can say a lot about its time,” says Fyodor Panfilov, one of the curators of the exhibition.
brother of a good man
The last thing one expects to see among the rarities of ancient Russia are sesterces with a portrait of Nero, other coins from the time of the Roman emperors Augustus or Marcus Aurelius… Moscow, of course, is the third Rome, but not to the same extent. Meanwhile, during excavation work near one of the Kremlin walls, a rusty coin containing thirty Roman coins was unearthed.
The success of the “hunter” Pavel Fedorovich Karabanov is evidenced by the fact that he was passing through the Kremlin (which was then an open, passable area) precisely at the moment when the workers began to divide the find. It would seem that a man takes care of his business and leaves. Immersed in his thoughts, and why does he care what the men with shovels by the well are arguing about? But Pavel Fedorovich was not the type of person to walk past a newly discovered treasure. He stopped. He bought a treasure from the workers for his numismatic collection. And at the same time, a brother, on which the inscription “Brother of a good man” was seen.
This story was told by the historian GF Filimonov, who described the “Russian Museum of P. Karabanov.” But researchers of this century have discovered that the plot seems even more entertaining. Scientists have proven that the collection has a Balkan trace. It turned out that the treasure contained coins from different eras, from Emperor Augustus to Constantine the Great. In addition, among them are fakes made as early as the 16th century, such as copies of the sesterce of 62-68, which were produced in Padua in 1530-1570 in such large quantities that collectors call them “Paduan”. Be that as it may, someone bought these coins in the Balkans. And this expert in ancient coins valued his numismatic collection so much that he brought it from Croatia or Serbia to Muscovy. And then, for some reason, he was forced to bury his treasure near the Kremlin walls. Apparently hoping to return. Overall, it seems that Karabanov bought not a well-hidden “stash”, but… a collection of Roman coins from the 17th century. Which means that in Muscovy already in those days there were avid numismatists.
