Authors

Catherine Phillips¹;  ¹ Independent Scholar, UK

Discussion

In 1815, Alexander I made two significant acquisitions of paintings: Spanish works plundered from the failed and humiliated Kingdom of Spain, and pictures from the collection of the late Empress Josephine. These were intended for the Hermitage, the imperial private collection housed in buildings attached to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. For some twenty years they were displayed in separate rooms, in which their origin – their acquisition by Alexander – was made clear, and where that acquisition was linked to his military victories against Napoleon.

If allegorical portraits or depictions of victory in battle have a clear propaganda purpose, the acquisition and display of art for political purposes, its manipulation to send messages that are not inherent in the art itself, sends a more subtle message. Art is not just what it was created as, but acquires multiple meanings, through the prestige of ownership, through the way it is presented. If Alexander’s grandmother, Catherine I, had used her acquisitions of whole collections from under the noses of foreign powers to demonstrate her enlightenment and the financial might of the country she ruled, Alexander’s Hermitage displayed art from defeated lands in a way that turned it into a symbol of Russia’s role in their defeat and thus of Russia’s (and Alexander’s) power and influence on the world stage.