From Spain with love | Tsarskoe Selo State Museum and Heritage Site

09.12.2022

Photographs of Pushkin and Pavlovsk in 1943Photographs of Pushkin and Pavlovsk in 1943 Postcards of the 1900s with portraits of Tsar Nicholas II's family members

Postcards of the 1900s with portraits of Tsar Nicholas II's family membersPostcards of the 1900s with portraits of Tsar Nicholas II's family members Soviet publications of the 1900-30s about Leningrad's suburban palace museums and French papers covering the Nicholas II's coronation

Soviet publications of the 1900-30s about Leningrad's suburban palace museums and French papers covering the Nicholas II's coronationSoviet publications of the 1900-30s about Leningrad's suburban palace museums and French papers covering the Nicholas II's coronation Cross and thurible (censer) from the Alexander Palace and decorative fragments from the Catherine Palace

Cross and thurible (censer) from the Alexander Palace and decorative fragments from the Catherine PalaceCross and thurible (censer) from the Alexander Palace and decorative fragments from the Catherine Palace Decorative door detail of the Pavlovsk Palace's Italian Hall

Decorative door detail of the Pavlovsk Palace's Italian HallDecorative door detail of the Pavlovsk Palace's Italian Hall Catherine Palace during the Nazi occupation

Catherine Palace during the Nazi occupationCatherine Palace during the Nazi occupation

Mr Antonio Pérez Caballero, a long-time friend of our Museum from Spain and now a member of our Friends Society, made a generous donation of original interior objects and decorative fragments from our palaces, as well as 205 iconographic artefacts including postcards of Russia's last imperial family and wartime photographs and film negatives of the suburban palaces of St Petersburg.

The Spanish philanthropist has been collecting artefacts related to Tsarskoe Selo for a long time. The donated items either came from his private archive or had been obtained from antiquity dealers and auctions. The items were delivered to Tsarskoe Selo thanks to the diplomatic support of the Russian Embassy in Madrid, where Mr Pérez Caballero had a lunch in his honour and was rewarded an honorary diploma for contributing to cultural cooperation between our countries.

According to Dr Iraida K. Bott, Tsarskoe Selo deputy director for research and education, "as an avid history researcher especially interested in the life and fate of Emperor Nicholas II and his family, Mr Pérez Caballero closely follows the Museum's events and the restoration of the Alexander Palace."

The donated postcards of the early 20th century are a great addition to our postcard collection.

Back in 2013, Mr Pérez Caballero already granted us the right to use the digital copies of 30 wartime photographs of Leningrad suburbs taken in 1943 by his grandfather, Antonio Pérez Juarez, who served as a veterinarian in the Spanish Volunteer Division (a.k.a. the Blue Division). Those and other photographs of Pushkin, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Gatchina and Ropsha, as well as their film negatives, came in the donation together with several photographs from a German war archive.

As Ms Victoria Plaude, Tsarskoe Selo photographs and negatives collection curator explains, "The photos of Pushkin town during the Nazi occupation are of great value to the Museum. They show the façades of the Catherine Palace, the occupiers in the palace halls and park pavilions, a part of the Palace Chapel's interior, and the palace's Great Hall already devoid of one third of its ceiling together with painting. These photographs are documentary evidence of both the destruction of Tsarskoe Selo and the feats of its museum workers and restorers who revived the beauty of the palace-and-park ensemble."

The artefacts donated by Mr Pérez Caballero have enriched the Museum's reserve collection and will be displayed at our future exhibitions.