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# Henri Rousseau, Matisse, Picasso: Sergey Ivanovich Shchukin devoted 20 years of his life to acquiring paintings from the finest French artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/anri-russo-matiss-pikasso-sergei-ivanovich-shchukin-posviatil-20-let-zhizni-priobreteniiu-kartin-u-luchshikh-frantsuzskikh-khudozhnikov-kontsa-xix-nachala-xx-veka/
- Published: 2019-09-15T15:43:55.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:43:35.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Moscow, Museums, Observations, People, Saint Petersburg

Henri Rousseau, Matisse, Picasso: Sergey Ivanovich Shchukin devoted 20 years of his life to acquiring paintings from the finest French artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection of Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Cubists and Fauves cost the merchant 1 million francs; today its value is estimated at 5 billion dollars. Most of the collection is now divided between the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum, and is on permanent display, so even if you failed to see the colossal exhibition, come and look at the masterpieces of Gauguin, Cézanne and Monet on any day you please. But what astonishes is this: how did they manage, for so many years, to keep the name of the gatherer of these treasures consigned to oblivion? And, above all, why? What harm could the name of a passionate collector and patron, a merchant, industrialist and financier, have done the Soviet state? One really cannot carry on like this.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_1795@15-09-2019_18-43-55.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_1796@15-09-2019_18-43-55.jpg)