EN
Throughout the 19 th century art collecting became a more and more popular human activity, not restricted as before to a small group - aristocrats, nobility, and scholars-researchers. The complex character of private collecting in the 19 th century is the reason why researchers are only attracted by its single aspects. These including first of all the collecting by new social groups: the bourgeoisie, rich industrialists, and bankers. Art historians are additionally interested in those collecting works of the new breakthrough artistic tendencies (Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Avant-Garde), therefore those who were involved in creating ‘collections looking into the future’, setting up benchmarks that future museums would aspire to. The new art was a subject of interest of Paris, Berlin, and Moscow businessmen, bourgeoisie, and financiers who promoted such values as innovation, novelty, and progress. Meanwhile, aristocracy valued other qualities more (tradition, history, past) and in those European cities (London, Cracow, Vienna) in which aristocracy held a strong position and were committed to cultural activity, collections of pieces of the new tendencies could hardly be found, or were extremely rare.