Marija Klawdijewna Tenischewa

Portrait of Marija Tenischewa

Marija Klawdijewna Tenischewa ( Russian Княгиня Мари́я Кла́вдиевна Те́нишева ), née Pjatkowskaja ( Russian Пятковская ); * May 20th ^jul. / June 1,  1858 ^greg. in Saint Petersburg ; † April 14, 1928 in La Celle-Saint-Cloud (France) was a Russian singer , artist , art collector , art patron and philanthropist .

Life

Born out of wedlock, Marija Pjatkowskaja grew up in the St. Petersburg house of her rich stepfather, the railway entrepreneur Moritz von Desen, who had married her mother. In 1874 after a private school education, she got married to the 23-year-old lawyer Rafail Nikolajewitsch Nikolajew in order to gain freedom. She gave birth to a daughter, Marija, but the marriage was unhappy because her husband was a gambler . There were rumors that Marija was the daughter of Emperor Alexander II and Rafail Nikolayevich was the son of Emperor Nicholas I.

The current Marija Nikolajewna soon traveled to Paris with her daughter to study singing with Mathilde Marchesi and to train her soprano voice. She also took drawing lessons, although her financial situation was very limited, as her husband had refused to allow her to leave and her mother no longer supported her. An agent offered her a trip with performances in France and Spain , which she declined because of a dispute with the agent. She also found that a life as a singer on stage was not for her. She returned to St. Petersburg and studied art history at the Central School for Technical Drawing of the Russian banker and philanthropist Baron Alexander von Stieglitz .

In 1892 she married the very wealthy industrialist Prince Vyacheslav Nikolajewitsch Tenischew (after a quick divorce from his first wife), although she was not recognized by his relatives. The couple's residence became the property acquired by the prince on Desna in Bryansk Oblast . The current Princess Marija Tenischewa immediately founded a one-class vocational school for locksmiths and welders , which became the Brjansk Polytechnic .

Repin's portrait of Tenisheva

Princess Tenischewa collected watercolors and was friends with many artists , especially Wasnezow , Wrubel , Roerich , Maljutin and Paolo Troubetzkoy . In particular, she supported Benois , Dyagilev and Bilibin . In St. Petersburg from 1894-1904 she ran a studio school for young people to prepare for art studies, in which Repin taught. She also established such a school in Smolensk . She was one of the founders and supporters of the Mir Iskusstwa (World of Art) magazine and movement, as did her friend Sawwa Mamontow . On her travels in Europe with her husband, she bought paintings , porcelain , marble - sculptures , jewelry and objects of historical value from China , Japan and Iran .

The princess also traveled with her husband in Russia, visiting the old cities of Rostov-on-Don , Rybinsk , Kostroma and the country on the Volga , where she got to know Russian folk art in villages and monasteries and collected tools, clothes, furniture, jewelry and glasses . In 1893 she bought Talashkino from her friend Princess Ekaterina Konstantinovna Swjatopolk-Tschetwertinskaja , where she founded and supported an artists' colony to promote Russian folk culture. In 1895 Princess Tenischewa provided a school with a library, kitchen, dining and sleeping rooms for the children in the area, with orphans having priority and being entertained by her. She herself worked as an enameller . In Smolensk she founded a museum for old Russian art. Talashkino was her life's work and an important center of Russian artistic life, comparable to the Abramzewo artists' colony until 1914.

After the October Revolution , she left Russia with her friend Princess Ekaterina Konstantinovna Svyatopolk-Tschetwertinskaja and her colleagues and, after a stay in Crimea, which was not yet occupied by the Red Army , settled in Paris with her maid Lisa . Her Russian memoirs , which describe her period from the late 1860s to New Year's Eve 1917, were not published until after her death.

Ivan Bilibin wrote in his obituary: "Her whole life has been devoted to Russian art and she has done an infinite amount for it."

swell

• What we know about Mary Tenisheva? A female patron (accessed August 7, 2015)
• Word on the patron of the arts: an exhibition devoted to Princess Tenisheva, the Museum of History (accessed August 10, 2015)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Алексей МИТРОФАНОВ: Как Мария Тенишева сделала свое имение центром русского художества (accessed January 10, 2017).
2. ↑ Тамара Вахитова: “Русский американец” в Петербурге (4) (accessed January 10, 2017).
3. ↑ Княгиня Мария Клавдиевна Тенишева (accessed January 10, 2017).
4. ↑ BSTU Polytechnic History ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on August 10, 2015) 
5. ↑ Тенишева Мария Клавдиевна ( memento of the original from January 10, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on January 10, 2017). 

Web links

Commons : Maria Tenisheva  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files