A room of Flemish primitives, and a state secret
This gallery brings together masterpieces of fifteenth-century Netherlandish painting: Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Memling, Petrus Christus, Michel Sittow. Several of these paintings share an origin less visible than their religious subject matter: they all came from the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, secretly sold by the Soviet government in the early 1930s.
1. Stalin sells off the Hermitage to fund industrialization
In 1928 the Soviet government ordered the Hermitage to draw up a list of its most valuable works for sale abroad. Between 1930 and 1934, more than two thousand works from the museum were quietly sold at auction or directly to private buyers, to raise the foreign currency needed for the first Soviet Five-Year Plan of industrialization — the same policy that would, in the following years, produce a devastating famine across Ukraine and several rural regions of the USSR.
American industrialist Andrew W. Mellon, alerted by the New York gallery Knoedler & Company, acquired 21 Hermitage paintings in 1931, among them Raphael's Alba Madonna and Titian's Venus with a Mirror. The transactions stayed secret until 1933, when the New York Times exposed the affair to the public.
2. The Annunciation, bought for $502,899
The Annunciation by Jan van Eyck, painted around 1434-1436, was bought by Mellon in June 1930 for $502,899. The panel, probably the left wing of a triptych unseen since before 1817, was transferred from wood to canvas during an early restoration — a risky procedure rarely practiced today, which accounts for the distinctive texture visible on the painted surface.
In 1937 Mellon donated his entire collection, including the Hermitage paintings, to the American government — a gift that officially founded the National Gallery of Art. The museum where these paintings now hang exists directly because of a sale the Kremlin would have preferred to keep secret.
How much time
Look for the acquisition dates on the labels in this room: several share the same origin, the same summer of 1930 or the same year, 1931.
- The Annunciation (Van Eyck) — 10 minutes.
- The rest of the room (Van der Weyden, Memling, Sittow) — 12 minutes.
Sources and verification
Checked against the official notices of the National Gallery of Art (nga.gov) and cross-checked with Wikipedia EN/FR.
- National Gallery of Art — The Annunciation, Jan van Eyck
- Wikipedia EN — Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings
- Wikipedia EN — List of paintings in the National Gallery of Art formerly in the Hermitage Museum
- Wikipedia EN — Annunciation (van Eyck, Washington)
Displays and room openings can change. Check the National Gallery of Art website on the day of your visit before following a route.
Listen to the commentary in the gallery
This route gives you a thread to follow. In front of an artwork, CulturAll adds the audio commentary: photograph the work or its label, listen, then ask your questions.
