Sheremetevs visiting the Yusupovs. Count N.P. Sheremetev and his printmaking gallery

The Arkhangelskoye Estate Museum has a new exhibition prepared by the Moscow Ostankino Estate Museum. Opening - dedicated to the 265th birthday of Count Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev (1751-1809), the founder of the Host Country, the owner of one of the best serf theaters in Russia, the patron of the arts. This is a kind of imaginary visit that Count Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev gives to Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov. And lucky to visit what he valued and proud of.

Today, when the Ostankino Palace entered the era of long-term scientific restoration, the invitation of the Arkhangelskoye Museum-Estate allows a contemporary audience to present a rare type of interior of the Engamp Gallery by modeling it on the premises of the Yusupov Palace. One of the goals implied by the exhibition is to once again remind the Moscow audience of the existence of such a beautiful monument as the palace-theater in Ostankino, and of such an extraordinary historical figure as Count Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev.

Print galleries in Russia, unlike Western Europe, began to come into fashion only by the end of the 18th century. The first was equipped by Catherine II in 1796 in the Tsarskoye Selo Alexander Palace. Count N.P. Sheremetev, an amateur of fashionable artistic novelties, immediately grabbed this idea, and in the same year ordered to rebuild the former Oval Room of the Ostankino Palace with two small rooms adjoining it. It has become the focus of the "intellectual" leisure of guests thanks to a variety of objects intended for detailed and careful consideration - engravings of all European schools and precious Western and Eastern porcelain, exhibited in slides and on tables. In the "scientist" to fill the room in a special window of mahogany, the so-called "Venus" was placed. An unusual and very expensive exhibit - a wax anatomical female figure "with an indication of complete anatomy" - made it possible to reveal in layers.

The fact that out of the great number of manor museums that arose around Moscow after the nationalization of noble estates, only a few survived - a direct merit of their extraordinary creators and owners. The appearance of two Nikolaev - Count Sheremetev and Prince Yusupov - has many common features. Almost the same age, the only heirs to the noble families and the largest states, connoisseurs and art lovers and passionate fans of the theater. They were united by what is now called a system of values. On the one hand, it was the result of similar interests, on the other hand, their proximity to the imperial court very often brought them close. So, Yusupov replaced Sheremetev as director of the imperial theaters. There is a lot of evidence of their good relations - from letters to a cup with a portrait of Sheremetev made at the Yusupov porcelain factory. From the surviving Guest Books, it is known that N. B. Yusupov often visited him, including in Ostankino. Sheremetev was not in Arkhangelsk and could not be - he died a year and a half before Yusupov acquired the estate.