Important Winter Sale presents – The Demidoff Cup

The sons in the next generation inherited vast fortunes and were renowned for their extravagance but also for their charity. The younger son, Nikita Akinfievich Demidoff (1724–1789) owned mines and steelworks in the Urals and Siberia as well as vast tracts of land. He was the first in the family to become a patron of the arts and sciences. A well–travelled man, he corresponded with Diderot and Voltaire.

His son Nikolai Nikitich Demidoff (1773–1828), who later commissioned the Demidoff Cup, was only fifteen when his father died, and he inherited an industrial empire of eight metal factories and 12,000 serfs which generated an enormous income. As a young man, he was so profligate that at times trustees were appointed. In 1797, he made an impressive marriage when he wed Baroness Elizabeth Stroganoff. The couple settled in the Hôtel de Brancas–Lauragais in Paris and became keen supporters of Napoleon. Heightened tensions between France and Russia forced the pair to flee to Moscow via Italy in 1812. When Napoleon invaded Russia, Demidoff set up and funded his own infantry regiment, fighting against Napoleon, under his own command.

With the passing years, the reckless spendthrift was transformed into a successful businessman who doubled his fortune. In 1819, Nikolai was appointed ambassador to the court of Tuscany. He purchased forty–two hectares of marshland near Florence which he transformed and in 1827 building commenced on a house there, Villa di San Donato. Nikolai was a renowned collector and the villa, in fact a palace, was provided with fourteen official display rooms for exhibiting his invaluable collections of art, Roman and Greek sculpture (now in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg), drawings, furniture, arms and armour (now in the Wallace Collection, London) and objets d’art, etc. It was said that Nikolai’s collections in his various residences in Paris, St. Petersburg, Moscow and San Donato were the largest in private ownership at the time. He was also a great philanthropist who financed schools, hospitals and charities in the region, which saw him granted the title of Count of San Donato by Leopold II of Tuscany. On his death in 1828, his heirs were his sons Pavel (1798–1840) and Anatoly (1812–1870).

Nikita’s eldest son Akinfiy Nikitich Demidoff (1678–1745) expanded the family empire with the addition of eight munitions factories and steel foundries between 1717 and 1735. He also started mining silver and gemstones in the Urals and Western Siberia. For his services, he and his brothers were made hereditary nobles. By the end of the eighteenth century, the family had become one of the richest in Russia, responsible for 40 percent of all Russian cast iron and members of the social elite.