Nikolai Ge - After His Death

After His Death

The fate of many of his works remains a mystery. At the end of his life Ge bequeathed all of his works to his Swiss benefactress Beatrice de Vattville (Russian: Беатриса де Ваттвилль, владелица замка Жэнжэн в кантоне Во в Швейцарии) in exchange for a small rent during his lifetime. She died in 1952 but none of Ge's work were found in her castle. Among the lost works is Ge's supposedly magnum opus painting The Crucifixion. Ge's drawings were found by art collectors in Swiss secondhand stores as late as 1974. Many "were acquired by a young collector, Christoph Bolman,... : he had no idea of their origin, simply recognising their value. Only some 15 years later, when he was visited during perestroika by Soviet acquaintances, did the attribution become clear. Negotiations for their acquisition and return to Russia – as a full collection, rather than sold off in parts – failed repeatedly during the 1990s. They were only concluded in 2011 after the Tretyakov Gallery was able to arrange sponsorship from a Russian state bank to purchase them for donation to the gallery’s permanent collection."