Sergei Shchukin

Who was Sergei Shchukin?

Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin was a Russian businessman who became an art collector, mainly of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, following a trip to Paris in 1897, when he bought his first Monet. He later bought numerous works to a total of 258 paintings decorating the walls of his palatial home in Moscow. By 1914, Shchukin owned thirteen Monets, including the iconic Lady in the garden and the smaller but complete version of "Picnic", three Renoir, eight Cézanne, including famous "Carnival", four Van Gogh, sixteen Gauguin of the Tahitian period, which were hanged in his dining room in the manner of an orthodox iconostasis, seven Henri Rousseau, sixteen Derain, eight Albert Marquet... Shchukin was particularly notable for his long association with Matisse, who decorated his mansion and created one of his iconic paintings, La Danse, specially for Shchukin. La Danse is commonly recognized as "a key point of career and in the development of modern painting".Henri Matisse created one of his major works La Danse for Shchukin as part of a two painting commission, the other important painting being Music, 1910.