By Engelina S. Smirnova
University of Moscow The Intesa Sanpaolo collection of Russian icons holds a particular place among the analogous collections which can be found out of Russia. It has indeed definite and specific features which confer it an absolute prestige with respect not only to other Western collections, but also to the ones of Eastern Europe and of Russia itself.
There are more than four hundred items gathered since the mid-1990’s by Banco Ambrosiano, merged with Banca Intesa, now Intesa Sanpaolo, by acquiring pieces from an Italian private collection and later at international auctions.
The collection is constituted of works from a very long period, from the XIII to the XIX century. This allows one to understand the evolutions, the involutions, the rebirths, the details of a figurative discourse which lasted for a millennium. During this period, the different “souls” of the Russian icon art are represented by regional schools in their great variety.
Beside the works of illustrious and widely recognized schools – such as those of Moscow, Novgorod, Vladimir, Tver and Pskov – the are the ones from the “provincial” areas of Central and Northern Russia, where some workshops we active, located along the commercial routes of the regions beyond the Volga river. Thus the Russian icon emerges from an abstract, timeless dimension, and acquires again its entire significance, its otherwise unsuspected depth. The peculiar worth of the Intesa Sanpaolo collection lies in its juxtaposing two different group of icons. On the one hand, there is a series of painted boards of the Middle Ages, from the XIII to the XVIII century – of remarkable artistic level – belonging to the famous schools of ancient Rus’. On the other, one can observe a vast and multi-faceted set of later Russian icons, especially of the XVIII and XIX century, a period that has drawn an increasing interest from both Russian and Western scholars.
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