"Sveonum monumenta vetusta". The Numismatic Collection of Elias Brenner (1647-1717) and Pavel Grigorievich Demidov (1738-1821). Exhibition in the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

20.06.2017

The Exhibition «"Sveonum monumenta vetusta". The Numismatic collection of Elias Brenner (1647–1717) and Pavel Grigorievich Demidov (1738–1821)» is dedicated to one of the best and oldest parts of the numismatic collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts as well as to the collectors and donators of it. The exhibition is the result of long work on studying of this collection and attribution of coins and medals.

Elias Brenner (1647–1717) was Swedish miniature painter, scholar, founder of Scandinavian numismatics, one of the earliest numismatists who medieval coin history and author of the first treatise on national coins and medals. His main work “Thesaurus nummorum Sveo-Gothicorum” was composed on the base on his own collection and became an important milestone in the history of numismatic studies.

Pavel Grigorievich Demidov (1738–1821) was a member of famous noble family of industrialists. He was a scientist, benefactor, founder of the College in Yaroslavl. In 1995, the State Yaroslavl university was named after P.G. Demidov. Due to P.G. Demidov large part of Brenner’s collection was kept and donated to the Coin Cabinet of Moscow university (1803–1806) and then to the Museum of Fine Arts (nowadays, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts).