The Hermitage rejects my suggestion

Back home now after a marvellous three weeks in St Petersburg.

I was invited on 30th August to an exhibition in the Apollo Room of the Winter Palace to show to the public some of the most interesting acquisitions made during 2006.

The item I was most interested in, because of my family’s Hesse connection, was (David's) Psalms. This book, published in Copenhagen in 1764 includes watercolour miniatures, a portrait of the Princess Dagmar, and an engraving illuminated by watercolours as well as engraved vignettes. It is in period leather binding with silver fastenings and inserts done in the Protestant style and belonged to Princess Marie Sophia Frederika Dagmar, daughter of Danish King Christian IX, who later became Empress Maria Fedorovna (1847-1928).

At one of the many elaborate dinners we had, I suggested to one of the junior curators that the Hermitage Museum ought to let me have Maria Fedorovna’s Psalms on permanent loan as I am very distantly connected to her (through her mother’s family). Perhaps if my Russian had been better (it is getting very rusty) he might have put the idea to Director Mikhail Borisovich, but then I wouldn’t have been able to afford the insurance!