Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings

About 250 paintings were sold, including masterpieces by Jan van Eyck, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael, and other important artists.

A special agency called 'Antiquariat' was created under the Narkompros (the People's Commisariat of Enlightenment) and opened an office in Leningrad to oversee the sale.

[2] Franz Zatzenstein-Matthiesen, a young German art dealer, had been asked by the Soviet Government to compile a list of the hundred paintings in Russian collections, which should never be sold under any circumstances.

Gulbenkian asked him to act as his agent on further purchases, but Matthiesen instead formed a consortium with Colnaghi's of London and with the firm patronized most by Mellon, Knoedler's.

The sale remained secret until November 4, 1933, when it was reported in The New York Times that several Hermitage paintings, including the Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych by van Eyck, had been purchased by the Metropolitan Museum.

In 1937, Andrew Mellon donated the twenty-one paintings, along with the money to build a National Gallery of Art to house them, to the United States Government.

A number of the National Gallery paintings have been loaned to the Hermitage, including Venus with a Mirror by Titian, at the time of the first visit of the President George W. Bush to St Petersburg in 2002.

The Alba Madonna by Raphael , was bought for the Hermitage by Emperor Nicholas I of Russia in 1836. It was sold to Andrew Mellon by the Soviet Government in 1931 for $1,166,400, the largest sum ever paid for a painting until that time.
The Annunciation by Jan van Eyck (1434) was purchased for the Hermitage by Emperor Nicholas I of Russia in 1850. It was sold to Andrew Mellon in June 1930 for $502,899.
Mezzettino by Antoine Watteau , was purchased for the Hermitage by Catherine the Great in 1767. It was sold in May 1930 to Calouste Gulbenkian , who sold it in 1934 to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Saint George and the Dragon , by Raphael, was purchased for the Hermitage by Catherine the Great in 1772, and later hung in the gallery of portraits of the generals who had defeated Napoleon. It was sold to Andrew Mellon in 1931.