The treasures of the Stroganoffs

An artistic legacy grounded in salt

Count Alexander Stroganoff Alexander Varnek Oil on Canvas, 1811

March 28, 2000
Web posted at: 6:02 p.m. EST (2302 GMT)

By Jack Hamann
CNN NewsStand Correspondent

PORTLAND, OREGON (CNN) -- Bill Gates has software. The Stroganoffs had salt.

In the late 15th century, a dry lake northeast of Moscow had enough salt to make Feodor Stroganoff a very rich man. During the next five centuries, Feodor's progenies amassed one of the greatest fortunes the world has ever known. An amazing display of that fabulous wealth is on display at the Portland (Oregon) Art Museum through May 31.

The audacious history of the Stroganoff clan is at least as interesting as the giant cache of artwork it accumulated.

Because it could flavor and preserve food, salt was, in some circles, pound for pound as valuable as gold. The Stroganoffs, wealthy from all that salt, invested their rubles well: They created private armies of Cossacks and sent them forth.

Malachite Coupe Peterhoff Lapidary Works Malachite and bronze, 1809-1810

Mercenary and merciless, the warriors for hire stormed across the Urals and east through Siberia, driving marauding bands of Tartars before them. Grateful tsars, beginning with Ivan the Terrible, rewarded the Stroganoffs for their efforts. The more the armies pushed toward the Pacific Ocean, the more Siberian land the Stroganoffs were deeded in return. By the 1600s, millions of square miles of some of the richest lands on the planet -- full of gold, timber, fur and iron ore -- belonged to one family. Bill Gates' wealth is puny by comparison.

While some of the Stroganoffs spent their riches on palaces and pomposity, others in the family poured their money into amassing an astonishing private collection of artistic treasures. One favored antiquities from classical Greece and Rome. Another enjoyed masters' canvases from Holland, Italy and France. Still others collected treasures from China and Egypt. The Stroganoffs also sponsored promising artists who worked wonders with silver, gold, embroidery and precious stones. By the late 1800s, the family palace in St. Petersburg housed what was arguably the greatest private art collection in the world.

The wealth and power came to a famous end in 1917, when Bolsheviks targeted Russian rich guys. With their art, land and palaces, the Stroganoffs were possibly the biggest target of all.

All their artwork became the property of the proletariat -- and eventually became the personal spoils of the Soviet elite. Josef Stalin sold much of the collection for much-needed hard currency, while the rest moldered in the Soviet State Museum, the Hermitage.

My wife, Leslie, and I recently spent a thoroughly enjoyable two hours viewing 230 pieces of the Stroganoff treasure on loan from the Hermitage at Portland's ambitious art museum. Years of persistence by the museum's staff -- and $3.5 million -- paid off, as most of the works have never before been out of Russia. Much of the credit also goes to Helene de Ludinghausen, a Parisian expatriate who is the last of the Stroganoff line.

The Battle of Lapths and Centaurs Luca Giordano Oil on canvas, ca. 1688

Tickets, purchased in advance, reserve a designated time for admission. The $13 admission (less for children, seniors and museum members) includes a digital tape player and headset for a self-guided tour.

The show's centerpiece -- and its first display -- is a much-heralded tall basin made of gold, bronze and malachite, a glistening green mineral. We're told that it had a twin that went to Napoleon Bonaporte and was never seen again.

The show does an excellent job of illustrating the amazing Stroganoff family history, and then organizes the wide range of paintings, statuary, manuscripts, lapidary and furnishings according to the particular passions of the leading lights of the Stroganoff lineage.

There are no jewels or hand-painted Russian eggs in the exhibit, but no matter. The overall effect is a journey through the once-exclusive domain of people who really knew their art and contributed to the careers of artists who might never had the funds to persevere.

My particular favorites were the elaborate Russian icons, painted with gold on wood, or woven with gold and silver thread. They look dazzling compared to the cheap reproductions available to tourists in modern Russia.

The show was all the more interesting because Leslie and I had each visited Russia -- Leslie to Moscow and St. Petersburg during the height of Soviet power, and I to Moscow and Siberia during the country's lurch toward democracy.

We were painfully aware that much of the exceptional wealth on display came at the labor and expense of far less-fortunate people. Modern complaints about Bill Gates' buggy software seem rather trivial by comparison. Yet the later-day Stroganoffs off the late 1800s championed the concept of public art in St. Petersburg, all the while using money for which some paid dearly.

The show's next stop is Fort Worth, Texas, and then possibly to Sydney, Australia, or Paris. While the treasures are on loan, St. Petersburg's Hermitage museum is undergoing a long-overdue facelift, to be funded in large part by the dollars tourists are expected to spend in Portland and Fort Worth.

Based on our visit, it is money well-spent.

And, by the way: The Stroganoffs did not limit their interests strictly to art. Count Paul Stroganoff was the man responsible for that rich beef and mushroom dish, beef Stroganoff.

"Stroganoff: The Palace and Collections of a Russian Noble Family" runs through May 31 at the Portland (Oregon) Art Museum. The museum web site is www.portlandartmuseum.org.

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