PORTLAND, Ore. -- It's a Russian story, but the elements are universal: war, business, politics and religion.
And the Portland Art Museum is attempting to tell this 500-year epic with "Stroganoff: The Palace and Collections of a Russian Noble Family," a $3.5 million exhibit running through May 31.A chance meeting between museum director John Buchanan Jr. and Baroness Helene de Ludinghausen, the last Stroganoff, brought the exhibit here. It took four years to organize and has drawn more than 100,000 visitors since its February opening.
The Stroganoff family of salt barons was so wealthy it once provided 20 percent of Russia's total tax revenue. It was so powerful it financed Russian military campaigns for four centuries and hired mercenaries to conquer Siberia for themselves and Ivan the Terrible.
They also loved art, collecting and commissioning thousands of pieces from the 1500s to the 1900s. With its immeasurable impact on Russian culture, the family even became synonymous with a style of art called the Stroganoff School.
But in 1917, the Bolsheviks chased the Stroganoffs away, nationalizing the Stroganoff palace in St. Petersburg and scattering the art works throughout Russia.
Now, 230 of those pieces have been reunited, shown outside of Russia for the first time.
On a recent weekday afternoon, hundreds of visitors ignored the predictable Oregon rain to pack the exhibit, putting on headsets as they shuffled through the various rooms, admiring the marbles, the bronzes, the Botticellis, the historical documents and the big malachite coupe, generally the centerpiece of the Malachite Room at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
But they also were drawn to the ornate furniture, and most people gawked at the coupe, a green stone basin cradled by a gilded stand. It was commissioned by Count Alexander Stroganoff, the family's most prolific collector.
The Russians did not want the basin to leave their country, but de Ludinghausen insisted. The baroness, who has set up a foundation to restore Russia's palaces and museums, had a huge hand in this exhibit.
"With the economy the way it is, the (Russian) government is no longer able to support museums," says Penelope Hunter-Stiebel, the curator, noting that cash-starved Russian museums have struggled since the fall of communism. "They are strapped. They're looking for Western money."
As she whittled through thousands of pieces to form the exhibit, Hunter-Stiebel says she didn't want to just throw art in people's faces; she wanted to tell a story.
Tapes for adults and children provide context, as do some historical documents. And it's easy to identify with religious paintings and portraits of various Stroganoff family members, including Mouton, the family spaniel.
"You don't need a Ph.D. to respond to this stuff -- it wasn't made for that," Hunter-Stiebel says.
Another exhibit highlight is a re-creation of the Stroganoff palace's paintings gallery. This is where Alexander Stroganoff, propped in a chair, spent his dying hours looking at works by Botticelli, Poussin, Van Dyck and others.
An old Russian proverb says "Richer than the Stroganoffs, you'll never be." Perhaps that's why people just don't have private collections like this anymore.
"It's absolutely the most exciting project I've ever worked on," said Hunter-Stiebel, who's based in New York City. "It touches on the underlying issues of the art world. Right now, the whole notion of private collecting has been questioned, with people believing they are cultural possessions."
Perhaps the most startling piece isn't even part of the official exhibit, it's a giant picture of the Stroganoff palace as it looks today: elegant chandeliers dangling above chipped walls and ripped-up floors.
Seeing the damaged palace, it's hard not to think of the revolution, especially when you listen to de Ludinghausen's contradictory message on the explanatory tape. On it, the baroness, who lives in France, concludes with this: "One of the reasons I'm so happy about this exhibition is that it shows how people of all the different classes in old Russia contributed to the vitality of it."