1854: birth in Moscow of Sergei Ivanovitch Shchukin, third boy among ten brothers and sisters. Sergei’s father Ivan Vassilievitch Shchukin was a self made Moscow merchant, his wife Ekaterina was born Botkin another leading family of Moscow merchants.

1878: Sergei Ivanovitch returns to Moscow after studying and training in the textile industry in Germany and France. He joins his father’s company “Shchukin and Son” located on Nikolskaja street,“the Moscow City”.

Circa 1880-1890: Schukin’s star is rising higher and higher with the fast growth of the Russian capitalism. He becomes one of the most respected textile traders of Moscow, nick named the “Moscow Minister of commerce”. He marries with on of the leading Moscow beauties at the time: Lydia Ivanovna Koreneva. Lydia will give him four children: Ivan, Ekaterina and the two twins Sergei and Grigori. His father enchanted with his son’s professional and mundane success buys and gives him the Trubetzkoy Palace, once the mansion of the governor of Moscow.

1895: Shchukin starts collecting as his brothers Piotr and Dimitri.

1897: He purchases his first Monet Lilacs in the sun to the art dealer Durand-Ruel in Paris, followed by 12 other remarkable Monet. One after the other the finest works of the finest French impressionists arrive in Shchukin’s home: Cezanne, Degas, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Douanier Rousseau and more others.

1905-1911: Tragedy fall upon the family: one of the twins, Sergei, drowns himself in Moscow River; Shchukin’s wife dies suddenly on January 1907. His brother Ivan poisons himself in 1908. He lived the life of a wealthy dandy in Paris, throwing his heritage away with painters and artists until his final bankruptcy. In 1910, the other twin, Grigori shoots himself in Shchukin’s Palace on the very birthday of his late mother.

1907-1914: During the same period, Shchukin is dashing into collecting as a drug addict. Despair and bitterness turn the gifted eye of the elegant trader into obsessive genius. Shchukin becomes the ideal patron of Henri Matisse and buys 37 paintings of his best period.

1909-1910: The biggest commission to Matisse: two decorative panels for the staircase of the palace intended to be the milestones of the new art: “Dance” and “Music”, among the most famous paintings of the XXth century to-day.

1909: Shchukin purchases his first cubist Picasso, he is both repulsed and fascinated by the completely unknown and miserable Spaniard, by 1914, his “Picasso room” is counting fifty paintings, and Shchukin is reputated to be the man who owns more Picasso than Picasso himself.

1914 The outburst of the war cut all communications between Shchukin and his painters and merchants. The collection is complete with 258 works. It is open to the public free, Sergei Ivanovitch making tours and lecturing for the bewildered, angry or enthusiastic Moscow society.

1915: Shchukin has met a beautiful divorcee aged 40, Nadejda Affanassievna Conus. The couple married eventually when they have the unexpected happiness of the birth of their daughter Irina. The collector has a new passion: to raise his daughter sparing her the family curse.

1917: After the February Revolution and the fall of the Russian monarchy Shchukin is appointed as a member of the commission for the transformation of the Moscow Kremlin into an Acropolis of Musuems, including  his own.

1918: February. After the October Revolution and the start of the civil war, Lenin’s Bolshevik government moves to Moscow. The Kremlin is used for other purpose.

1918: August. Dark clouds are coming upon the Moscow capitalists. Shchukin and his family leave the Soviet Russia with forged passports and his cash converted in diamonds hidden in little Irina’s doll.

1918: October. The decree of Lenin declares the collection and the palace property of the people.

1936: January. Death of Sergei Ivanovitch Shchukin in Paris.

Considering that Shchukin's art gallery constitutes an  exceptional collection of major works by great Europeans artists, mostly French, from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century ; and that, by its very high artistic quality, it presents for the People's education a national interest , the Council of the People's Commissars

decrees :

1°) That Sergei Ivanovitch Shchukin's art gallery is to become the public property of the Socialist Federative Republic of Russia and is to be allocated to the People's Commissariat for Public Education according to the general dispositions  applicable to the State Museums.

2°) That the building housing the gallery (Bolchoï Znamenskiï pereoulok, n°8), and as well, the adjacent land constituting the previous property of S.I. Shchukin and all the furniture, are allocated to the People's Commissariat for Public Education.

3°) That the Commitee for the Museums and Protected Buildings and the People's Commissariat for Public Education are given the mission to elaborate and put in practise rapidly, a new mode of management and activity for the previous Shchukin gallery which responds to the present needs and to the aim of democratisation of the cultural and artistic establishments of the Socialist Federative Republic of Russia.

 The Chair of the Council of People's Commissars

Vladimir Oulianov (Lénine)
                                        

The executive director of the Council of the People's Commissars

Vladimir BONTCH-BROUYEVITCH

The project of this decree presented by the People's Commissariat for Public Education was adopted by the Committee for the Council of the People's Commissars on the 28 th of October and approved by the CCP on the 29th of October.

Original : 1f, Archives funds 2, inventory 1, n°7384
Izvestia N°242, November 5 1918, brief of Laws and regulations N°82, p.851