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The development of the wealth of the Urals has been largely due to the Demidoff family. Nikite Demidoff was sent by Peter the Great, about the year 1701, to examine the mines on both sides of the chain. He performed his work thoroughly, and was so well satisfied with the prospective wealth of the region that he established himself there permanently.
In his ornamentation of every detail with gold and jewels he recalls the style of Antonio Vivarini, but while the master used it as accessory merely, Crivelli positively revelled in it. An inventory of the precious stones, ornaments, fruits and flowers, and other detached items in the great "Demidoff Altar-Piece" in the National Gallery would fill several pages.
M. Trimolet has etched in a Dutch manner a landscape of Hobbema in the Louvre, but M. Gaucherel translates a Ruysdael from the Demidoff collection into an exquisite delicacy and airiness of line which is the language of etching in its most modern expression.
"That came from the Wolfgang sale I gave six hundred for it. It's worth six thousand now you can't find such a piece anywhere. Ah! by George!" with a stifled shout "and that's the Demidoff tazza!" as Faversham lifted up a thing lying in a half-open box that might have been ebony a shallow cup on a stem, with a young vine-crowned Bacchus for a handle.
In 1851, Demidoff bought the villa of San Martini, which Bonaparte occupied during his stay in Elba, improved the building at a cost of forty thousand dollars, and made of it a museum in which were to be seen all sorts of curiosities connected with the great emperor hats, swords, pistols, portraits of the king of Rome, and manuscripts for which he paid one hundred thousand dollars.
Among matters connected with the Académie, Prince Demidoff has asked for instructions as to how he may best serve the cause of science during a journey which he proposes to undertake into Siberia, accompanied by a scientific staff.
What most offended him, however, was the fact that M. Demidoff, in the Catholic as well as in the Greek marriage ceremony, had promised to educate his children in the faith of the officiating priest. In consequence of this he was deprived of such titular honors as he possessed and was ordered to live abroad.
The little cabinet of my favorite restaurant, sacred to the initiated, had the same marble table, cheerful outlook, pictured ceiling and breezy curtains, the same look of elegant snugness; but, when we had seated ourselves in garrulous conclave over the carte, it was to the member of our party whose knowledge was of the latest acquisition that we submitted the choice of a repast; and as he discoursed of the mysterious excellences of cotelletes a la Victoria, rissoles a la Orleans, patés de fois gras a la Bonaparte, paupicettes de veau a la Demidoff, truffes a la Perigord, etc., we realized that the same incongruous blending of associations, the same zest for glory and dramatic instinct, ruled the world of cookery as of letters, and that, with all the political vicissitudes since our last dinner in Paris, her prandial distinction had progressed.
The results of their labors are described in four octavo volumes Voyage dans la Russie méridionale, exécutée sous la direction de M. Anatole de Demidoff and inscribed to the emperor Nicholas. One reward of this labor was election to the Institute de France, his competitors being Parry and Sir John Franklin.
Florence, as well as St. Petersburg, owes much to M. Demidoff among other things, an asylum in which fifty boys are trained in silk-weaving. It was in Paris, however, not in the city which he so long honored with his residence, that in 1870 this philanthropic and enterprising man took leave of worldly vanities. A History of Classical Greek Literature. By the Rev.
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