Nikolai Golovanov’s collection includes a watercolor picture “Monplaisir” by the famous Russian artist Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois.

Alexandre Benois (1870–1960) was an art historian, art critic, reformer of Russian scenic painting, and founding member and the main ideologist of the “Mir iskusstva” art movement. Nikolai Semyonovich Golovanov was interested in collecting works of the artists that belonged to this movement, such as Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Konstantin Somov, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and others. As for Benois, the conductor met him personally in 1920 in Petrograd, in the shop of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts.

(By this, Benois meant the monthly journal “Zolotoye Runo” (The Golden Fleece), dedicated to art and literary criticism and published in Moscow between 1906 and 1909).

Initially, there were six works by Benois that Golovanov acquired for his collection, but only one called “Monplaisir” has survived to this day, which makes it even more valuable. The picture belongs to the series of graphic works, depicting the surroundings of Saint Petersburg, which, along with the Versailles Series, made Benois widely famous. Alexandre Benois’ preferred themes were France during the reign of the Sun King and Saint Petersburg in the 18th century and the early 19th century. Between 1900 and 1902, that is a few years after “The King’s Walk” was created, the painter began to work on a series of landscapes depicting the palaces of Peterhof, Pavlovsk and Oranienbaum.

While Paris was the artist’s true passion, Saint Petersburg with its surroundings and residences of the rulers of the past inspired him no less. One of those inspirational places was Monplaisir — Peter I’s favorite country palace, located in Peterhof on the very shore of the Gulf of Finland. The artist reflected the palace interiors in the displayed work. There are no people walking the “silent” halls — the painter rather focuses on the bygone yet living beauty of the architecture, certain objects and details and the way they coexist alongside nature. All that creates a complete and balanced composition. Nikolai Golovanov believed that the works of Benois reflected his own view of art.