3. The New Museum of Medieval Icons

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to the creation of private museums of medieval icons and ‘primitives’ in Russia and Western Europe at the start of the twentieth century. One of these museums belonged to a famous Russian collector and artist, Ilya Ostroukhov (1858–1929). Ostroukhov shared a similar appreciation for ‘primitives on a gold background’ with the American art historian, art dealer and collector Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), a taste that Berenson had started to cultivate by the end of the nineteenth century. Taking as examples Russian, Italian and American collections of ancient icons, this chapter demonstrates common tendencies in the discovery, study and collecting of medieval icons and Italian ‘primitives’, as well as new trends in the European art market.