tensions inherent in the work between neo-classicism and romanticism. It was the first Russian artwork to cause such an interest abroad, making Bryullov the first Russian painter to gain an international reputation. Five foreign academies made him an honorary member and the quantity of positive reviews and critical comment was such that the Society for the Encouragement of Artists published a volume of them in Russian translation. When the painting arrived in Russia in August 1834, it was received with as much enthusiasm as it had been in Italy, according to Gogol as much by those with a refined taste as those who were ignorant of art. Bryullov was made an honorary free associate of the academy and awarded the Order of St Anne, third class. He was made a professor at the academy in Saint Petersburg and placed in charge of history painting. He met the Tsar. Ivan Turgenev described the painting as "the glory of Russia and Italy" and it inspired Alexander Pushkin to write a poem about the destruction of Pompeii. Russians saw the painting as elevating the status of Russian art in Europe generally and in turn it elevated the status of painters in Russia. Gogol opined that it was a "bright resurrection of painting, which has been for too long in some sort of semi-lethargic state", but was not alone in seeing a parallel between Pompeii and contemporary Saint Petersburg and the painting as a forecast of divine retribution for the modern city's decadent Western ways. The dissident Alexander Herzen, meanwhile, saw it as an allegory about the collapse of European monarchies or the tyrannical power of the Russian state over the individual. After his great success with The Last Day of Pompeii, Bryullov was expected to produce similar large works of history, but most of his attempts remained unfinished and he was criticised for his , which was completed in only 17 days in 1834. Instead he found success in portraits of the Russian elite including the royal family. Ownership In 1834, Demidov presented the painting, for which he had paid 25,000 rubles, to Tsar Nicholas in an attempt to win his favour. It was at first exhibited in the Winter Palace, but in 1836 Nicholas donated it to the Imperial Academy of Arts where it remained until it was installed as the centre of the Russian painting display at the New Hermitage in