Bonhams Magazine

Editor's Letter

We all know that artists change the world. From the moment that prehistoric man sketched on cave walls, artists have interpreted and shaped our world. But there’s another group that have also had a profound influence: collectors of art.

This issue features collectors who changed the course of modern art: the Stein family, Ivan and Mikhail Morosov, and, let’s not forget, Madame de Pompadour. On page 42, Martin Gayford writes about the Steins, who championed Picasso and Matisse. There was Gertrude, of course, her brothers Leo and Michael, and her sister-in-law Sarah. It is Sarah, sometimes glossed over by history, to whom Matisse felt closest. It is she who persuaded Leo to buy the Stein family’s first Matisse (Leo thought it “the nastiest smear of paint I have ever seen”) and who bought Nu (femme) debout, offered in London’s Impressionist and Modern Art sale this November. When Sarah returned to the United States in 1935, Matisse wrote to her, “It seems to me that the best part of my audience has gone with you.”

The Morosov brothers, wealthy Russian textile merchants, brought French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist work to Russia. Ivan was the first Russian to buy a Picasso (for 300 francs). A selection of Morosov’s astonishing collection, including a room of Cézannes, is at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris (until 22 February). One of Ivan’s advisors was Valentin Serov, the greatest Russian portrait painter of his generation, whose study of an officer is offered in The Russian Sale in December. As Claire Wrathall writes on page 22, Serov was close friends with the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, designing the curtain and sets for ballets, as well as encouraging Ivan to buy two van Goghs.

One collector who stamped her imprimatur firmly was Madame de Pompadour, the maîtresse-en-titre to Louis XV. The marquise was a player in the political field, a supporter of Diderot and his encyclopaedia – and a lover (that is not too strong a word) of Sèvres, of which factory she was by far the most important patron. On page 28, Rachel Spence interviews Rosalind Savill, whose book about Pompadour and her obsession with porcelain, is essential reading for anyone interested in the power of patronage. We can’t all be artists, but every one of us can make a difference to art.