TALIANSKE CESTY RUSKÝCH UMELCOV A ARISTOKRATOV V PRVEJ POLOVICI 19. STOROČIA. AKÉ STOPY ZANECHALI NA ÚZEMÍ SLOVENSKA?

The study describes the nature and destiny of the art heritage of Russian aristocrat Natalia Ivanovna Ivanov (1801–1850) and her foster father, a French Earl Xavier de Maistre (1763–1852). Natalia I. Ivanov was the first wife of Baron Gustav Friesenhof (1807–1889), who in 1846 bought a renaissance manor in Brodzany, the territory of Ponitrie. The heritage consisting particularly of art albums, herbaria and manuscripts that originated against the background of two phenomena of Russian culture and history, namely the activities of a Russian art community living in the territories now forming Italy in the first half of the 19th century and the journeys of Russian aristocrats in Western and Southern Europe, especially in the Italian Peninsula, the place where Natalia I. Ivanov and Xavier de Maistre were living in 1826–1838. The study reflects activities of Earl de Maistre and N. I. Ivanov during the above- mentioned period in the company of Russian aristocrats and diplomats as well as their art activities together with important Russian artists, such as Orest A. Kiprensky and Karl P. Briullov or the representatives of the Naples art school Posillipo and French painters. The art heritage mirroring a unique combination of Slovak environment together with Russian aristocracy and Russian and Italian artistic circles is today presented in the Slavic Museum of A. S. Pushkin in Brodzany.