The Shchukin presentation also had an entirely

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The show begins in the basement, with nearly two dozen photos of the Morozov family, including several fascinating portraits of Russian painter Valentin Serov. His full-length portrait of Mikhail shows him in a morning robe, round and confident. Mikhail had a strong taste for the Parisian cabaret and, above all, its showgirls. (He would die young, at 33.)

Ivan, whose best portrait of Serov would appear later, with the Matisses, was more pragmatic and Muscovite, but no less experimental in his artistic tastes. They were old believers and relatively new money: their great-grandfather was a serf who had bought his freedom with his wife’s dowry of five rubles.

Like most of Moscow’s high society, the Morozov brothers were also French-speaking – and found in Paris a cultural realm in which they could immerse themselves and bring home. The first highlight of the exhibition is a mural-scale landscape room by Pierre Bonnard, commissioned for the staircase of Ivan Morozov’s mansion in Moscow. The largest are over 3 meters high and are full of Mediterranean colors that must have surprised the beautiful Russian world at aperitif time. Gauguin was another source of brilliant color, and a dozen Tahitian images of astounding quality permeate their own gallery here.

Gauguin room, and this show and this one both feature incredible job function email database portions of Cezanne, Monet, and Matisse. But the Russians were different collectors – “Morozov walked in the shadows, Shchukin in the light,” said one of their contemporaries – and so these are different shows.

Shchukin was more daring, especially in Picasso’s collection, but Ivan Morozov had the better eye. Shchukin relies on French art, while the Morozovs also collect Russian artists; here’s a bright pairing of an airy party photo by Renoir and an outdoor boat scene by Russian painter Konstantin Korovin. (He also taught the Morozovs to paint when they were young.) Shchukin bought on a whim; Ivan Morozov could wait a whole year and conceived of his collection as a museum in the making.