Department History

The core of the numismatic collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts came originally from the Moscow Imperial University, founded in 1755. History of the collection can be traced back to the end of the 18th century, when the numismatic objects began to have been collected for the use as tutorial material during the courses in the numismatics and heraldry which were being taught as early as 1757. Coins and medals made their way to the Library, departments and societies of the University due to the donations and purchases. In the 19th century during the Napoleonic wars the major part of the university archives, library and collections perished in the Moscow fire and after the war all survived numismatic exhibits and books began to have been officially referred to as Münzkabinett. In 1852 the latter became part of the Cabinet (or Museum) of Fine Arts and Antiquities set up by the centennial anniversary of the Moscow University’ foundation. By the end of the 1880s, the reconstruction of the University caused the division of its collections and laid the foundations of two main Moscow numismatic collections:  in the Historical Museum (where the Russian coins were stored), and in the Alexander III Museum of Fine Arts (where the Classical and Medieval part were kept). The latter was founded and headed by Ivan Tsvetaev (1847-1913), Professor in the theory and history of art. The Numismatic collection grew rapidly and in 1945 the autonomous Numismatic Department was organized in the Museum, where 23, 000 genuine coins and medals as well as 36, 000 plaster casts were kept.

Coins and medals made their way into collection due to the donations and purchases and were used as learning materials for the students of the Moscow Imperial University, where courses in the numismatics and heraldry were being taught from as early as 1757. We know about 3000 plaster casts made from gems (F.D. Lippert’s “Dactylioteca”), which were given to the University as anonymous gift in 1770.

Donation by the emperor Alexander I included coins and medals,  artistic rarities and Natural History Cabinet from the heirs of the princess Anna Yablonovskaya (1728–1800) was the most important acquisition in 1802. Prince A.A. Urusov also bestowed European golden coins, rarities and minerals, altogether estimated at 150, 000 roubles. For his largesse Urusov was elected university honorary member and decorated with the order of St. Vladimir. An outstanding gift was made by Pavel Demidov in 1803 and 1806 . He donated to the university his library, precious stones, natural and numismatic cabinets with one of the best European collection of the Swedish medals. Alexander I awarded Demidov personal golden medal "For the benefit of science”.

During the Napoleonic wars a major part of the university archives, library and collections perished in Moscow fire of 1812, but the most valuable exhibits were evacuated and saved by the rector Ivan A. Geym (1808-1818) and his colleagues – university teachers Fisher von Valdheim, M.G. Gavrilov, M.T. Kachenovskii and others. After French occupation, by 1818 the university was rebuilt by the architect Domenico Gilardi. Its libraries and collections were restored due to the donors and benefactors. All preserved numismatic exhibits were collected together and from that time the numismatic collection was officially referred to as Münzkabinett. We know that some books, coins and medals from this Münzkabinett have been still kept in the depository of the Pushkin Museum. The numismatic collection was being stored packed and only new acquisitions were registered. 323 items were listed by Geym in 1813, 1816 and 1818. In 1818 collection of c. 300 coins from doctor D. Chernyavskii and his son was donated to the Moscow University, of which the list of 118 coins was preserved. Since 1822 professor M.G. Gavrilov (1759¬1829) was elected as curator of Münzkabinett. In 1826 the Ministry of Public Education initiated special commission, which had to inspect the composition of the collection of the Münzkabinett . The final list included 4 640 items. The first catalogue of 3 731 coins and medals was prepared and published in 1826. At that time several collections were received as gifts. In 1826¬1827 c. 2,000 European and Russian coins and medals were presented by Alexander Turgenev (1784-1845), known public figure, publicist, historian and archaeographer. 237 Roman coins were purchased from prince Meshcherskii in 1827. The most remarkable acquisitions came in 1830s, when earl Sergey Sroganoff became the curator of the Moscow University and trustee of the Moscow Educational District. He was collector himself and his friendship with other collectors enriched the Münzkabinett of the Moscow University. In 1838 11 000 sulfur casts, which copied Classical coins of the Paris National Library and the Berlin Münzkabinett were acquired from the known St Petersburg collector Jacob Reichel, who earlier purchased this collection after the death of Heinrich Karl Köhler, the former curator of the Hermitage’ coin collection. As to Reichel, he preferred to collect Russian coins and medals because he supposed that too many Greek and Roman fakes appeared at the numismatic market. In 1839 Stroganoff arranged also the purchase of 5,935 Roman coins from Reichel, which belonged earlier to the collection of Karl Heideken, the general and the former Russian consul  in Genoa. 

This time was marked with new ideas of the “Aesthetic Museum”, which became popular from the very beginning of the University’ existence. S.P. Shevyrev and M.P. Pogodin, talented and active young people, were their propagators. In 1829 the princess Z. Volkonskaya supported their project. However, there were no funds for the creation of the new Museum, and only by the end of 1840s it was set up as a part of the Imperial Moscow University. For the time being Professor P.M. Leontiev (1822-1875) was the initiator and founder of the Cabinett (or Museum) of Fine Arts and Antiquities. The Münzkabinett became its part. In 1852 the Museum was opened and occasionally dedicated to the centenary of the Moscow University. The jubilee attracted donations to the university. The numismatic collection was enriched with six golden staters of the Bosporan kings, which came from the earl L.A. Perovskii, the honorary member of the university. Begichev, assistant of the Director of the Kerch Museum, in 1854 presented finds from Anapa and Kerch, golden jewelry and silver Chersonesian coin. Professor K. Zelenetskii from Richelieu Lyceum in 1855 bestowed of medals and 65 ancient Greek coins. Documents in the archive of the Münzkabinett testify that Leontiev practiced the exchange for the replenishment of the collection. He got coins from the comissioners like Brykin and Zaitsevskii, earl Uvarov and B.V. Koehne, curator of Hermitage’ collection. P. Leontiev was the first who started the archaeological excavations of the site of ancient Tanais in 1853 and brought the finds made to the university’s collection. According to the list compiled in 1854 there were 16 464 coins and medals in the numismatic collection of the University. In 1861–1883 Karl Goertz (1820–1883) was the curator of the University Museum. He prepared the inventory books of the collection, while continuing archaeological studies, but this time at the Taman peninsula. Systematic purchases were being made abroad, mainly from Parisian (H. Hoffman and Ch. Rollin) and Italian (Roman and Neapolitan) dealers. The new curator of the University Museum in 1884¬1889, Professor A.N. Schwartz focused on publishing the collection. He invited the known numismatists to work on the coins: L.A. Tretyakov (for Russian coins), A.M. Podshivalov (for Roman coins) and A.V. Oreshnikov (for Greek coins). Only “The Description of the Ancient Greek coins belonging to the Imperial Moscow University” by Oreshnikov was published in 1891 and listed 2 783 coins. The handwritten catalogue of the Roman coins compiled by Podshivalov is kept until now in the Pushkin Museum as well. It was finished in 1888 and included 5 671 coins. The State Historical Museum was opened in 1888 and on the initiative of Oreshnikov 9 309 items from the Russian coin and medal collection of the Moscow University were temporary transferred there. Oreshnikov was in charge of it as curator from 1888 to 1933. In 1889 Professor Ivan V. Tsvetaev (1847-1913) who headed the chair of the Theory and History of Art, was elected as the Head of the University museum. Ivan Tsvetaev had far-reaching grandiose plans to set up and build new Moscow independent public art museum. He devoted 25 years of his life to setting up this museum. Due to his initiative and years of single-minded work an art museum was organized and built on the Volkhonka street. The Alexander III Museum of Fine Arts was opened on May 31, 1912. In the rooms of the new museum visitors could see the exhibition of the European medals and Roman coins from the collection of Konstantin A. Gubastov, the former ambassador in Vatican and assistant of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who presented 431 numismatic items in 1911. 

The Münzkabinett became part of the Sculpture Department of the new museum. Alexander N. Zograf (1889–1942), Tsvetaev’ student was its first curator. Since 1913 he was working in the Museum as trainee. Only five years later, in 1918 Zograf was invited by the new director V.K. Malmberg to take the post of the Head of the Numismatic subdepartment (1918–1922). He was working with the numismatic collection alone and only in 1917 Ivan S. Strakhov, the former director of the 2nd male gymnasium, joined him as assistant and worked until 1934. Reknown Moscow collector Alexander G. Golikov (1865–1940) also was helping to A. Zograf and to later curator of coins and medals, Lev P. Kharko (1899–1961), as volunteer in identification and systematization of the coins. In 1923 Museum of Fine Arts was amalgamated with the Rumyantsev Museum and in 1924 the University Museum got new official status and became independent of the Moscow University. The coin collection formed the core of the Cabinet of Numismatics as part of the Sculpture Department. From 1924 to 1936 the collection of the Classical coins (approximately 1500 pieces) from the Museum-Institute of the Classical Orient, earlier belonging to the known philosopher V.V. Rozanov, was transferred to the Museum. The Cabinet of Numismatics was enriched with the collection of 12 500 plaster casts made from gems and coming from former Rumyantsev Museum as All-European Cabinet of casts by James Tassi (1735–1799). The collection of the Cabinet in general enumerated at that time c. 50 000 items, more than 14 000 originals and 36 000 casts.  On the November 10, 1924 a celebration of new Museum took place. It meant the end of the university period in its history. This year Lev Kharko came to Museum to take the post of curator of the Cabinet of Numismatics. In 1932 the museum was renamed as the State Museum of Fine Arts.

L.P. Kharko graduated from the Moscow University and in time became not only art historian, but archaeologist and numismatist. Following university traditions, he organized in 1927–1929 the survey works and excavations on the sites of the Taman peninsula. In 1937 the Museum won the prize for the best art museum organized in conjunction with the celebrations for the centenary of Alexander S. Pushkin’s death and was renamed as the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The 1930s were the hard years for the museums. According to the government program various valuables were withdrawn from the Museum for the sales at international auctions and this politics led to the loss of many first-class art objects from the Russian collections. There were losses in the university part of the numismatic collection of the Pushkin Museum too. 259 coins left the Museum (219 items before belonged to the old University Collection). In 1940 Cabinet of Numismatics was enlarged twice due to the will of the old friend of the Museum – Aleхander Golikov. His numismatic collection was being assembled over fifty years and included 10 618 items in total, among which one can recall 3019 Classical coins, 3272 Russian coins, 3602 Medieval coins and over 700 Oriental coins, gems and stones. There were many rare and previously unpublished pieces. The collection embraced almost all sections of numismatics including coins of the Ancient World, Western Europe and Russia. During the Second World War, in 1941¬1945, the big part of the numismatic collection was evacuated together with other museum funds. After the war the structure of the Museum was subject to the partial reorganization. Six new departments were organized, including autonomous Numismatic Department. Lev Kharko became its first Keeper. After the war the collection of the Saxon kings consisting of 150 000 specimens was brought from Germany to Moscow, to the Pushkin Museum. Kharko coordinated the process of its systematization and registration. In 1958 the captured numismatics and paintings were returned to the Dresden Gallery. Between the end of 1940s and the 1980s   the Moscow and Leningrad mints regularly sent examples of their production to the Soviet museums. More than 10 000 items of this kind are stored now in the collection of the Pushkin Museum. In 1951 over 5 500 numismatic pieces came to the Department from the Museum of Oriental Cultures. The whole section of the Far-Eastern numismatics emerged. The main part of it was collected by Dmitrii Melnikov (1864–1949) and Vyacheslav Pentkovskii (1886–1968), who spent most of their life-time in China. In 1956, Elizaveta Kvaas, German citizen, donated the numismatic collection of the Museum of the Russian History abroad (1897–1914) to the Soviet government. Russian Church in Berlin was headed by archpriest Alexey Maltsev (1854-1915), who also was the founder of the St. Prince Vladimir’s Brotherhood and the Museum of the Russian History. This Museum accumulated various memorabilia presented by the Russians visiting Germany. In 1914 when the Museum was closed c. 1100 exhibits were stored there. Maltsev managed to save collection and entrusted it to one German family, who kept it until they could come to Russia and hand it over to the Pushkin Museum.

Coin finds from the archaeological excavations of the Pushkin Museum were another important source of the numismatic materials. In 1950s more than 1,200 coins from Panticapaeum and 250 coins found in Hermonassa were added to the numismatic collection. Overall, by 1961 the collection had grown to 130 000 exhibits. In 1963 Museum purchased some rare golden Russian and Classical coins from collector F. Vishnevskii (1903–1978), who was known as well as founder of the Tropinin Museum. In 1965 the collection of the Central Asian numismatics and antiquities came as donation from the family of the artist Anatolii Smirnov. There were over 5 000 items, including big hoard of the Khorezm dirhams of two Khans of the Golden Hoard dated from the 15th century. There were many interesting surface finds of the Islamic coins in the Smirnov’s collection too, which he picked up while travelling to the ancient city-sites of the Central Asia. The hoard of the Juchid copper coins in the Pushkin Museum came from the city of Stary Krym, and the hoard of the Jegataid dirhams was discovered in Horgas situated at the border between Kazakhstan and Xinjiang. It is noteworthy the good condition of 92 Sasanian drachms and 16 hexagrams of Heraclius and his successors from the hoard found in 1956 in Leninakan (Armenia). In 1969 the Museum received a gift of 108 silver coins of Caesarea in Cappadocia from the doctor E.L. Fishkov. All coins originated from the hoard found in 1926 in Gerseuli, Abkhazia. In 1960s museum purchased several thousand coins from the known Moscow collector David I. Moshnyagin (1909–1987). Classical, Medieval and Russian coins and medals were among them. Another big acquisition came to the Museum from the widow of the known collector Eugenii A. Pakhomov (1880–1965), academician, archaeologist and numismatist. He was among the founders of the National Museum of History of Azerbaijan. Pakhomov was collecting coins during 65 years and according to his will, it had to be divided among main museums of the USSR, namely, those of Baku, Tbilisi, Leningrad and Moscow. The Pushkin Museum purchased over 12 000 items, Russian, Oriental and Medieval ones. The considerable increment represented collection of Vladimir N. Stepanov (1893–1963). 3 200 pieces of Russian and Soviet coins and medals were acquired in 1978–1979 from his widow Z.V. Lomakina. At the beginning of 1970s the numismatic collection of the Pushkin Museum comprised already over 115 000 pieces. In 1983 the remarkable collection of 400 medals by Alexander Stakhovich (1884–1959), Russian officer and emigrant, who collected medals of Peter the Great, was bought in Paris (France) by the Soviet Ministry of Culture. There were many rare items and medals coming from the old known collections like those of E. Gutten-Chapsky and Grand Duke Georgii Mikhailovich. The medals from the Stakhovich’ collection were being regularly displayed at the museum exhibitions in 1983, 2005, 2009 and later years.

Fine European medals, engraved stones and shell-gem of the 15th – 18th centuries came with the donation of Eugenia Polosatova (1902–1986) in 1985. In 1994 Museum bought a little but remarkable hoard of 30 Ptolemaic tetradrachms, found in Egypt. 98 golden dinars of the rulers of the Central Asia dating from the 12th – 13th centuries were acquired in 1995. Obviously, it was part of the unknown hoard from Uzbekistan, which contained some rare and even unique coins. The hoard of 200 Late-Roman coins discovered in the North-Western Crimea nearby the city of Eupatoria entered to the Museum in 1999. At the same year collection of 550 Islamic coins was purchased from the numismatist Vladimir N. Nastich. It included many coins, which were absent before in the Museum collection. Several groups of the coins of the archaeological origin came to the Numismatic Department at the beginning of the 21st century. Among them one should mention the hoard of the Vasudeva imitations and the Kushan-Sasanian coppers from Turkmenistan; the hoard of the bronze Timurid coins from Uzbekistan and one private collection from Merv consisting of 721 coins, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sasanian and Islamic ones. Addressing the very recent acquisitions one should recall the collection of Jurii Schulz (1923-2005) including 368 European and Russian personal seals of the 18th-19th centuries as well as collection of 102 Classical, Russian and Medieval coins. Schulz was professor, bibliophile and translator of the Classical texts. He used to work in the Pushkin Museum as curator of the European numismatics during 1947–1951 and afterwards, during 1955–1989 he was working in the Department of the Latin language at the 2nd Moscow Medical Institute, having become finally its Director. His collection together with his library (over 500 rare books) was purchased for the Museum in 2009 thanks to his widow Natalia A. Voznesenskaya (1930–2011).

The list of the exhibits of the numismatic collection could not be completed without mentioning some relics. There are among them two Nobel prize medals. One was awarded in 1904 to the academician and physiologist Ivan P. Pavlov (1849–1936) and was purchased in 1969 together with six golden medals, which he received as prizes and awards from the Russian and European institutions and academies. The other Nobel medal was bought in 2013 from Iliya Frank, physicist, who got it along with his colleagues in 1958. The modern medallic section replenished regularly. Since 1950s Numismatic Department got medals by the known Hungarian medalist Beni Ferentsi (in 1969), French artist Berta Camu (in 1975). A considerable lot of modern Polish authorial medals entered the collection during 1984–1985. There are masterpieces of Piotr Gawron, Jozef Stasinsky, Bronislav Khroma, Zofii Demkovsky, Jozsef Marek and others. Bogomil Nikolov, the head of medalists’ school of Bulgaria should be mentioned as well. He presented 10 medals to the Pushkin Museum in 2018.

In 2020 the Numismatic Department turned 75 years since it was established as autonomous department of the Museum. Its collection now numbers more than 220 000 objects:

Classical – 28 500

Oriental – 32 000

Medieval and medals – 64 000

Russian and medals – 61 700

Casts – 35 000

Since the beginning of the1990s curators have been working on the entering numismatic collection into electronic database. Exhibition and editorial activity represent important directions of the curatorial work as well. Five volumes of the catalogues publishing coins of the Greek cities of the Black Sea, Magna Graecia, Sicily and Byzantine Empire were prepared by Sergei A. Kovalenko. Renaissance medals and collection of the Swedish coins and medals coming from the university part of the Museum collection was published in English by curator Julia Krasnobaeva. For this work the Swedish Numismatic Society awarded her in 2018 silver medal of Elias Brenner. Curator Ulyana Volkova published the former collection of the Russian Museum abroad. Two periodical editions containing publications of the various parts of the Museum numismatic collection were initiated in 1996, “Moneti i Medali” and “Numismatics and Epigraphy”. Natalia Smirnova and Sergei Kovalenko were acting as editors of these issues. All in all more than 10,000 museum specimens were published in these volumes. Numismatic exhibitions as a rule were also accompanied with either catalogues or brochures. Nowadays the Numismatic Department foresees the creation of the permanent numismatic exposition in the Museum, which now is under the process of reconstruction, modernization and expanding.