Cultural Leadership and International Dialogue between the London and St Petersburg Academies of Art, 1757–1805

Abstract

Launched eleven years apart, the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg and the Royal Academy of Arts in London developed a stimulating dialogue in the decades following their foundation. This article explores the emerging relationship between them, and considers the ways in which aspects of governance, policy, and practice in St Petersburg were shared or emulated in London. A particular focus is the mediation of Prince Hoare who, in his official correspondence with the Russian Academy in the early nineteenth century, generated a more international understanding of Russia's premier art school. Rather than being an isolated institution on the periphery of the academic map, the Imperial Academy emerges in this account as a welcome contributor to pan-European academic discourse, and an intriguing new model of how official public patronage might nurture and support the visual arts.