“[A] jewel-like focus yet epic scope, reads as sumptuously as a 19th-century novel, and makes stunning use of material still emerging from Soviet archives to illuminate dark corners of history”—Jackie Wullschläger, <i>Financial Times</i><br /><br />“A century of Russian culture distilled in the story of the life, family and collection of the lavish, lazy, kindly, eccentric grandson of a serf who brought Monet and Matisse to Moscow, waited three years for the right “blue Gauguin”—and survived the first years of Bolshevik rule.”—Jackie Wullschläger, <i>Financial Times </i>‘Best Books of 2020: Visual Arts’<br /><br />“Semenova was wise to widen the focus, and make this the biography of a family, and also of a collection...The descriptions of their activities read like raw material for Gogol or Dostoevsky.”– Martin Gayford,<i> Spectator</i><br /> <br /><br />“A narrative skilfully told by the art historian Natalya Semenova”—Martin Bentham, <i>Evening Standard</i><br /><br /><p>“Natalya Semenova, who told the story of Shchukin and his collection three years ago, now brings her expertise and narrative verve to the less well-known Morozov.”—Lesley Chamberlain, <i>Times Literary Supplement</i></p><br /><br />“After [Semenova’s] exhaustive searches, it is difficult to imagine what further revelations might usurp her volumes on Morozov and Shchukin as the definitive studies of their patronage.”—Rosalind P. Blakesley,<i> Literary Review</i><br /> <br /> <br /><br />“This book is a tribute to the commitment of a patron of the arts and a timely warning about the arbitrary power of the state to destroy and mishandle material.”—Alexander Adams, Alexander Adams Art<br /> <br /><br /><p>“Drawing on a lifetime of research, Natalya Semenova has produced a riveting biography of an intensely private man who became one of the world's greatest collectors of modern art. Her pioneering account of the life and times of Ivan Morozov restores a vital lost page in the cultural history of imperial Russia. Morozov's importance has always been unfairly eclipsed by the better-known and more flamboyant Sergei Shchukin. Natalya Semenova has been able to redress the balance, and her latest biography completes a magnificent diptych chronicling the life and times of Russia's two great collectors.”—Rosamund Bartlett</p><br /><br />