Ancient vases from the Adolphe Raifé collection in St Petersburg: From Mikhail Petrovich Botkin to the State Hermitage Museum

Abstract In March 1867, a significant collection of antiquities, amassed over several decades by Adolphe Raifé (1802–1860), was auctioned in Paris. A member of the Parisian bourgeoisie, Raifé had formed a varied collection of art, books and antiquities. The focus of this article is the last of these categories. At the 1867 sale, a number of Greek vases were acquired by the Russian artist Mikhail Botkin (1839–1914), who was important not only as a collector but for his contribution to the publication of art and archaeological artefacts in Russia. His collection was gradually dispersed, many of the objects finding their way into museums around Russia and then the USSR. Most of Botkin’s classical antiquities are today in the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. This article looks at the biographies of Raifé and Botkin, collectors of successive generations, highlighting similarities and differences in their approaches, and identifying vases that passed from one collection to the other.