The Cabinet

In this room, which is softly and slightly lighted (because its windows face the North) Yevgeny Boratynsky worked.
In 1874 the interior of Tyutchev's cabinet in St. Petersburg was brought to Muranovo. Since that time the room is called "The cabinet of the two poets". Here are kept Boratynsky's and Tyutchev's personal belongings and other family relics.
Boratynsky's bureau was made according to his own blueprints. On the bureau are his wallet, a blotting-pad, a press and other little things that belonged to him.
In the room there are several portraits of Boratynsky. In one of them he is represented with an elegical thought on his face, which was a typical feature of a Romanticist. This painting in charcoal is of great value because today we have a very small quantity of portraits of Boratynsky.
I the Cabinet there are also some portraits of Boratynsky's father-in-law, L.N. Engelgardt, his sister-in-law Sophia and a photograph of a destroyed portrait of Anna Lvovna, the poet's wife. An engraving by N. Utkin, which copies a famous portrait of Pushkin by Kiprensky, also belonged to Boratynsky. In the beginning of 1828 he wrote to Pushkin: "Your portrait in "The Severnye Tsvety" ("The Northern Flowers") is really authentic and beautifully engraved. Delvig gave me a copy. It is now in my cabinet.
Other exhibits connected with Boratynsky are interesting too. For example, one of them is the poet's last collection of poems, "The Twilight", which was partly prepared in Muranovo and published in 1842. Two Italian landscapes by Corrodi were bought by Boratynsky especially for the house in Muranovo, while he was abroad.
Close to Boratynsky's bureau stands the bureau of Tyutchev. On the bureau there is an ink-pad,, a paper-knife, a bell, a leather blotting-pad and a quill, with which the poet made his last note. There also are several candles, which (according to the family legend) were put out on the day of Tyutchev's death.
In the Cabinet there also are some portraits of Tyutchev, showing him in the years of studying in the University, during the Munich period and in St. Petersburg.
An impressive portrait copied from a photograph by S. Levitsky (1867) is also widely known. It has been repeatedly placed into the poet's publications.
In the Cabinet there also are some portraits of Russian and German relatives of the poet. Not of great value in the views of art, they represent an important biographic material.
The portraits of Tyutchev's grandfather and grandmother are interesting as pieces of "naive" art. They were probably painted by an unknown serf-painter of the late 18th century. The portrait of the poet's mother by an unknown artist (the 1860s) is considered to be one of the best paintings of the Muranovo collection.
A portrait of Ernestine Tyutcheva, he poet's wife who was, as Aksakov wrote, "a woman of astonishing beauty and intelligence", easily draws one's attention. The portrait was painted by a German artist F. Durke in 1840. The other German painter F. Leubach is the author of the portrait of Ernestine's brother C. Pfeffel, a Bavarian publicist and Tyutchev's friend.
The portrait in oils of Helen Botmer, Tyutchev's first wife, painted by an unknown artist of the 1820s expresses all the charm of the beautiful and loving woman who was very important in Tyutchev's life.
The portraits of Tyutchev's daughters: Anne, Daria and Catherine, painted by A. Salome, express the freshness and purity of the children's faces, while in the portraits of 1850-1860s the girls are already shown as formed personalities, each of them with her own unique way of thinking.