In 1856 Pavel Tretyakov, a 24-year-old Moscow merchant, acquires several paintings by contemporary artists. In 1860 he sets out on his first foreign trip on official business of his Trading House with the purpose of self-education. At the same time he makes his will. There are the following lines in it: "I bequeath the sum of 150,000 silver rubles for the founding of an art museum or a public picture gallery in Moscow […]". Guided by this will, he continues his collecting.
Pavel Tretyakov acquired works not only by contemporary painters. His flair of a collector was keen enough, and he realized that the Gallery should display the complete panorama of Russian art in all its diversity. During his first trip to Italy he meets the architect A.S. Kaminsky, who later married Tretyakov's sister Sophia. Being aware of Bryullov's works that were in Italy Tretyakov asks to acquire the portrait of the archaeologist M. Lanchi from his heirs. Thus in 1860 the collection was enriched with Bryullov's first work "Portrait of the Archaeologist M. Lanchi" (1851). The collector was so fond of Bryullov's painting that he acquired works of "Karl the Great" henceforth.
Sincere friendship marked relations between Tretyakov and many artists. In some cases he supported them financially. Sometimes the acquisition of a painting determined the subsequent career of its author. V.G. Perov's painting "A Village Procession at Easter" (1861) is one case in point. Not many people approved of the anticlerical message of the canvas. Artist V.G. Khudyakov wrote the following in a letter to Tretyakov: "Rumor has it that the Holy Synod will send you a letter of inquiry to ask you on what grounds you purchase such immoral paintings and display them in public?" Pavel Tretyakov was forced to sign a written pledge stating that the painting would not be displayed in public. Later on he would acquire many works by Perov, including «"Troyka". Apprentices Fetching Water» (1866).
In the second half of the 19th century paintings of the realistic school were a means of criticizing society's "sore points", which Pavel Tretyakov was greatly concerned about. Thus he acquired the following paintings: "The Unequal Marriage" by V.V. Pukirev (1862), "Alumna" by N.V. Nevrev (1867), "Temptation" by N.G. Shilder and "Princess Tarakanova" by K.D. Flavitsky. These paintings are concerned with a pressing issue of the day – women deprived of civil rights. As Tretyakov wrote in his will of 1860: "[…] I bequeath the sum of 8.186 rubles and what would be gained from it by trading for marrying poor brides to decent men".
In 1865 Pavel Tretyakov married Vera Nikolayevna, born Mamontova. She was a cousin of Savva I. Mamontov, the hospitable owner of the Abramtsevo estate in a Moscow suburb, whose daughter - also named Vera - was the model of V.A. Serov's painting "Girl with Peaches" (1887). Their family was a happy one, and their children were friendly and considerate to one another. Vera and Sasha were elder daughters, then Lyuba and Misha were born, followed by Masha, born four years later, and then Vanya, everyone's pet, came into the world. Alas, Misha was born ill and disabled. And a terrible calamity fell upon the family in 1887 - at the age of 8 Vanya died of scarlet fever complicated with meningitis.
The family was fond of their house in Tolmachi. Pavel Tretyakov used to live there before his marriage together with mother, sisters and his brother Sergei's family. He brought his young wife Vera Nikolayevna to that house, his children were born there, and the girls left the house only after their engagements. From 1869 onwards the family lived in their country house in Kuntsevo from May to September; later they began spending summers in the Kurakino estate on the Yaroslavskaya road.
The parents preferred to give their offspring home education. The hard-working father, being a good example of diligence, cultivated a taste for good painting in his children. And from their mother Vera Nikolayevna the girls inherited a gift for music. There were two Bechstein concert pianos in the drawing room. Vera, Sasha, Lyuba and Masha had a lot of classes in music, but Vera was the most talented among them. A friend of the family, Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky, recommended Vera enter the conservatoire, but her father, an advocate of strict rules, prohibited her from doing that.
Meeting the brightest people of that time was a part of the children's upbringing. The writer Turgenev, composers Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky, artists Repin, Surikov, Polenov, Vasnetsov, Perov and Kramskoy frequented the Tretyakov house. Some of them were even relatives of the family. Tchaikovsky's brother Anatoly was married to Tretyakov's niece. N. Yakunchikova, wife of the artist Polenov, was a niece of Vera Nikolayevna. The children grew up every day seeing paintings by O.A. Kiprensky, V.A Tropinin, A.G. Varnek and P.A. Fedotov in the studies of their father and mother. And paintings by Sylvester F. Shchedrin, L.F. Lagorio and K.P. Bryullov decorated the dining room.
In October 1867 Vera Nikolayevna by decision of the City Duma took the trusteeship of the Pyatnitskaya Primary Public School for girls. Initially the School consisted of only two forms for 50 persons; soon the number of forms and pupils began to grow rapidly. Out of fifteen similar schools the Pyatnitskaya School was considered to be the best one.
Pavel Tretyakov was on the Board of Trustees of the Arnold School for deaf children. In an 1879 letter to V.V. Stasov he commented on speculations about his wealth in the following way: "I do not possess the money many people expect me to. I am not a concessionaire, I am not a contractor, I am in charge of a school for the deaf […]". He attended to the needs of the college for several decades. The college students - both girls and boys - not only learned to read, write and studied various sciences, but also mastered various crafts. The Tretyakovs frequently visited the college, where they knew every student by name. The parents always took their daughters with them for educational purposes.
On the face of it, the life of the family might seem light, happy and carefree. But were the Tretyakov daughters free to handle money at home as they saw fit. Did they become millionaires when they grew up. In 1893 Pavel Tretyakov writes a long letter to his daughter Alexandra, in which he reveals his own opinion of the paternal duty: "Money is a dangerous thing, which causes relations of a bad kind. Good upbringing and education is what parents should provide their offspring with; material security is not that important". In this letter he also writes: "My primary objective since my younger years has been to save money in order to return what was gained from society back to the people in the form of some useful institutions; I never lost sight of this idea".
Although Tretyakov was a first guild merchant having a linen manufactory in Kostroma and a store in Ilyinka Street in Moscow, he committed himself to collecting paintings and devoted all his time and energy to this hobby.
Pavel M. Tretyakov did not miss a single significant exhibition where he could spot interesting works for his collection. Sometimes he acquired paintings in artists' studios long before they were exhibited. This is what happened to some canvases, which decorated the debut of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (STAE). He shared the belief of STAE members in the reviving power of the arts in society's life, as well as their noble aspiration to make it the common property of the people. He supported artists' interest in moral and ethical problems.
At the First exhibition of the STAE displaying forty-seven works landscapes made up a good half of the exposition. Tretyakov was captivated by the intangible beauty of Russian nature depicted in Savrasov's painting "The Rooks Have Returned" (1871). At that time he acquired another painting - "Peter the Great Interrogating Tsarevitch Alexey at Peterhof" by N.N. Ghe (1870). The collector highly praised the originality of the theme and the lifely language of the painting. At the Second Itinerant Exhibition Kramskoy's painting "Christ in the Wilderness" (1872) was displayed for the first time. It had also been bought from the painter in his studio. Tretyakov was sure it was the best painting of that time.
Tretyakov's idea to collect a series of portraits of his outstanding contemporaries was realized when he asked his friends among artists to paint them. In 1872 V.G. Perov sent to Tretyakov his portraits of N.A. Ostrovsky (1871), F.M. Dostoyevsky (1872), A.N. Maikov (1872), M.P. Pogodin (1872), V.I. Dahl (1872) and I.S. Turgenev. Later these portraits were displayed at an exposition of the Itinerant Art Exhibitions Company in 1872-1873.
The story of creating Lev Tolstoy's portrait (1873) by I.N. Kramskoy was remarkable indeed. In 1869 Pavel Tretyakov asked A.A. Fet to persuade Tolstoy to pose for the portrait. A year later Fet wrote to Tretyakov that Tolstoy was "strongly opposed to the idea". Four years passed. In August of 1873 Kramskoy was visiting the countryside five versts from Tolstoy's estate Yasnaya Polyana. In an attempt to fulfill Tretyakov's request Kramskoy tried to talk the writer into posing for the portrait. When Tolstoy refused again, Kramskoy put forward a weighty argument: "[…] I will not paint your portrait, and none of my contemporaries will, but in some 30, 40, 50 years it will be certainly painted, and all we will have to do is regret that it wasn't done in time". Leo N. Tolstoy yielded to this argument, but on the following condition - the artist would paint two portraits, one for Tretyakov's collection and the other for the writer. Kramskoy agreed and the two portraits suited the customers perfectly.
Pavel Tretyakov also asked Kramskoy to paint a portrait of N.A. Nekrasov who had been in poor health for quite a long time. In his letter dated the 11th of April 1877 the artist writes to Tretyakov: "Tell me whether you will keep the portrait of Nekrasov where he lies in bed writing poems. […] I wish to know that because other people will want to have it […]". As a man who carefully weighed his decisions Tretyakov replies: "I cannot give you a definite answer concerning another Nekrasov portrait until I see it, but for God's sake keep it for me […]". Nekrasov died in December 1877. The painting was finished without him and the canvas consisted of several parts. The head of the poet was painted on a small separate canvas and that was what I.N. Kramskoy managed to paint when Nekrasov posed for him from the 7th to 16th of February 1877. This image was glued onto the canvas of the painting "Nekrasov during the Period of the Last Songs" (1878).
After ten years of marriage, in 1875, Pavel Tretyakov wished to have a portrait of his spouse, Vera Nikolayevna. As usual, there was a good deal of correspondence with Kramskoy. The artist wanted to paint a large portrait with a landscape background. It took almost two years to paint it. Kramskoy started painting it the Kuntsevo estate in September 1875. The artist worked at the "Portrait of Vera Tretyakova" during the winter and spring of 1876. Kramskoy felt the portrait was "a failure" because Vera Nikolayevna had never posed for him. Then he decided to make another try, which he did in 1879 ("Portrait of Vera Tretyakova").
Pavel Tretyakov himself always categorically turned down all requests to pose for artists. Once he fell ill. It wasn't a serious illness - either rheumatism or gout - but he had to stay at home. On that occasion Kramskoy suggested he paint a portrait of Tretyakov (I.N. Kramskoy, "Portrait of P.M. Tretyakov", 1876). Another portrait of the collector was painted by I.E. Repin ("Portrait of P. Tretyakov", 1883). Tretyakov "neither wanted, nor ordered that portrait. Repin painted it of his own accord. Pavel Tretyakov agreed to pose only because he liked Ilya Repin […] and gladly posed for him on Sundays. It was in the winter of 1881-1882 […]", recollects Tretyakov's daughter Alexandra Pavlovna.
By the year 1872 there was not enough room for over the 150 paintings of the collection in the family's house in Tolmachy. It was necessary to build a new venue - the Gallery - specially designed for the collection. Tretyakov asked his sister's husband, A.S. Kaminsky, to design the project. He wanted the gallery to adjoin the south wall of the house bordering upon the fence of the Church of St Nicholas in Tolmachi. According to the blueprint, the Gallery was to have two floors. The construction continued throughout 1873. The paintings moved into the new building in March 1874. Works by old masters were displayed on the GalleryΓÇÖs first floor, the walls opposite the windows featured landscapes by S.F. Shchedrin, F.M. Matveyev, M.I. Lebedev and M.N. Vorobyov. A spacious hall on the second floor housed contemporary paintings by V.G. Perov, V.I. Yakobi, V.V. Pukirev, K.D. Flavitsky ("Princess Tarakanova") and others.
TretyakovΓÇÖs largest acquisition (worth 92,000 rubles) was a series of works by V.V. Vereshchagin. When Tretyakov saw paintings from "the Turkestan cycle" in the artist's studio in Munich in 1872, they produced an immense impression on the collector. The grandeur of the conception, the originality of the plot and the painter's brilliant mastery fascinated Tretyakov. In 1874 Vereshchagin made up his mind to organize an exhibition in St. Petersburg where he planned to display works based on the materials of the Turkestan tour. Tretyakov intended to acquire this series and hand the paintings over to the The Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture as a gift. However, the School Board did not accept the gift because there were no available premises for the paintings, nor were there funds for their construction.
Then Tretyakov gave this collection to the Moscow Society of Art Lovers, stipulating that within the next three years the Society would exhibit the paintings. However, the Society failed to meet TretyakovΓÇÖs conditions, and in 1881 he returned the collection to his museum as a gift to Moscow. By that time it included 78 studies by V.V. Vereshchagin painted in India. They were acquired in 1880.
The acquisition of a few more paintings of VereshchaginΓÇÖs Balkans series ("Shipka-Sheinovo. Skobelev at Shipka", 1878-1879) was an indication of how much Tretyakov appreciatee the artistΓÇÖs civic stand. On the 12th of April 1877 when the Russian-Turkish War was declared Vera Nikolayevna "prayed for a just cause - liberation of Slavonic brothers from the Turkish conquerors". The Tretyakovs kept a close eye on the information comintg from the war region. They admired Vereshchagin and Polenov, who were serving as war correspondents. After Polenov arrival in Russia to settle down in Moscow, Tretyakov closely followed his work and acquired "Courtyard in Moscow" painted in 1878.
Pavel Tretyakov had an infallible knack as far as choosing paintings was concerned. He never missed a chance to consult the artists he trusted concerning the acquisition of a certain painting. That was the case with Maximov's painting "Arrival of a Sorcerer at a Peasant Wedding" (1875). After acquiring the canvas the collector provided the artist with a few useful comments. Kramskoy wrote later that the painting became much better after the artist made a few alternations in it.
In I.N. Kramskoy Tretyakov found an indispensable advisor who understood all the concerns of the collector. Their correspondence concerning the acquisition of Shishkin's portrait painted in 1873 was quite typical. "I suppose it would be just to ask 1,000 rubles for it", - wrote Kramskoy. - Is it too much for you? If it is too much, then let it be 800 rubles. In case this sum is too big for you, you are free to name the sum yourself. Believe me, I shall be relieved to know I didn't put any pressure upon you". To this Tretyakov replied as follows: "Shishkin's portrait is just beautiful, but I opt for the sum of 800 rubles as I cannot pay more for portraits, though I am absolutely sure that its real price is even heigher than a thousand rubles […]".
The distressing events of 1881 - the deaths of Dostoyevsky, Rubinstein and Mussorgsky - gave way to joy when Tretyakov saw Surikov's painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution" (1881) at the 9th Traveling Exhibition. The powerful talent of the 33-year-old artist fascinated the collector. In 1881 Pavel Tretyakov decided to open the Gallery to the public. The Gallery changed its status to become "public" instead of "national-artistic" and "historical".
In 1882 the Gallery was widened again ΓÇô to include the territory of a garden that used to surround the house. Three new rooms upstairs and three downstairs were added to the Gallery. Paintings of the "Turkestan" and Indian series by Vereshchagin were exhibited downstairs , whereas V.I. SurikovΓÇÖs monumental canvass "Morning of the Streltsy Execution" and some other fine paintings were put up on the second floor of a new annex together with the works of A.K. Savrasov and other artists of the 1860s-1870s. The next room housed paintings of I.N. Kramskoy and F.A. Vasiliev. The exposition and placing of the paintings remained the same till Tretyakovs death.
In the 1880s the celebrated collection was enriched by even more prominent artworks, which remaine the pride and glory of the Tretyakov's Gallery - "Portrait of M.I. Lopukhina" (1797) by V.L. Borovikovsky, "Portrait of N.V. Kukolnik" (1836) by K.P. Bryullov, paintings by I.E. Repin "Religious Procession in Kursk Province" (1880-1883) and "Tsar Ivan the Terrible and his Son on 16 November 1581" (1885).
The next annex was constructed in 1885 to add three more facilities upstairs and five - downstairs. This made it possible to put the paintings in order - they had been exhibited in a somewhat chaotic manner. Works by N.A. Yaroshenko and N.N. Ghe were placed in the first room of the new annex. Then there was Surikov's hall with the artist's greatest canvases - "The Morning of the Streltsy Execution" (1881), "Menshikov in Berezovo" (1883) and "Boyarynya Morozova" (1887). Next to Surikov's hall there was Repin's hall. On the partitions between the newly constructed rooms there were landscapes, including works by the young artist I.I. Levitan. On the first floor there was enough room for studies and sketches by A.A. Ivanov (the collection included over 70 works of the artist). Pavel TretyakovΓÇÖs astuteness enabled him to acquire the "Portrait of a Young Woman Posed as John the BaptistΓÇÖs Head" and the study "Thick Forest Lighted Up by the Sun" by A. Ivanov.
It took Tretyakov good health to visit his manufactory in Kostroma four times a year, never miss international exhibitions in Europe and be in time for the opening of academic and traveling exhibitions in Russia. Tretyakov was deeply disappointed when Repin's grandiose canvas "Barge Haulers at the Volga River" (1870-1873, the State Russian Museum) was acquired by the Grand Duke Vladimir. After that episode he had to acquire the painting "Ivan the Terrible and His Son on 16 November 1581" (1885) prior to the exhibition's opening without even seeing it. This canvas too was prohibited by the city authorities from being exhibited, just like "Village Procession at Easter" (1861) by V.G. Perov several years before. Some months later the ban was lifted.
Whether he chose the right paintings was always a painful problem for Tretyakov. I.E. Repin did not always approve of the collector's choice. But one could only admire TretyakovΓÇÖs unmistakable flair for artworks when he acquired the painting "An Autumn Day in Sokolniky" (1879) by Levitan, a young artist whose name was not yet familiar to art connoisseurs. He bought the painting at an exhibition of student works despite RepinΓÇÖs negative opinion. Objectivity and the ability to enthusiastically accept new art trends were typical of Tretyakov, who took a great deal of interest not only in the works of the Peredvizhniki. He also praised the talent of 23-year-old V.A. Serov and his painting "Girl Bathed in Sun-light" (1888) though some artists were strongly critical of it.
Another young talented artist who was acclaimed by Tretyakov was M.V. Nesterov, whose works "The Hermit" (1888-1889) and "Young Bartholomew's Vision" he purchased for the collection. For every painter it was a great honor to have his paintings exhibited in the Gallery. Nesterov once said: "My father said that neither my medals, nor knowledge would convince him that I was an "efficient artist" until my paintings were exhibited in the Gallery". Tretyakov acquired another work by I.I. Levitan "After Rain. Stretch of the River" (1889) despite the negative opinion of some "connoisseurs".
The forth annex was added to the Gallery in 1892. Two more big halls and one smaller room appeared on the upper floor, with three relatively small halls downstairs. The new premises displayed new entries dating from the late 1880s and the 1890s. They were works by S.A. and K.A. Korovin, "Girl Bathed in Sun-light" (1888) by V.A. Serov and the most significant paintings of I.I. Levitan - "Vladimirka" (1892, gift of the author), two monumental landscapes "By the Whirlpool" (1892), "Above Eternal Peace" (1894) together with a study for this prominent canvas (the last acquisition of Tretyakov). Above the staircase leading down the frieze by V.M. Vasnetsov "Pious Joy of God. Threshold of Heaven".
The constantly expanding collection left less room for the exhibits. That is why works by F.A. Malyavin were put up in the halls featuring works by I.I. Shishkin, I.K. Aivazovsky and A.I. Kuinji. However, the GalleryΓÇÖs monographic halls should be considered its greatest achievement. These premises were specially designed to exhibit works by Tretyakov's favorite artists - I.N. Kramskoy, V.D. Polenov, V.V. Vereshchagin and I.E. Repin.