Museum of the Hermitage

The museum of the Hermitage , (in Russian Ru Эрмитаж, Ermitaj ), located in the middle of Saint-Pétersbourg, at the edge of the Neva, is today one of the largest museums of the world. More than 60.000 parts are exposed there in nearly 1000 rooms while nearly 3 million objects are preserved in the reserves. The museum presents, beside many parts of Antiquity, a collection of works of art European of the traditional period which count among most beautiful in the world with those of the Musée of Louvre and of the Musée of Prado. Among exposed works appear of paintings of Dutch and French Masters like Rembrandt, Rubens, Matisse and Paul Gauguin. One also finds there 2 works of Léonard de Vinci like 31 paintings of Pablo Picasso. The museum employs 2500 people. The buildings sheltering the museum of the Hermitage constitute one of the principal whole of the center of Saint-Pétersbourg, who is classified with the world heritage UNESCO.

Buildings

Initially, only the building indicated under the term of Petit Hermitage bore this name. Today the Hermitage gathers a complex of several buildings built with 18th and 19th century. Beside the small Hermitage, one finds the Viel Ermitage , the Nouvel Hermitage , and the theater of the Hermitage as well as the major part of the Palais of Winter formerly main home of the tsar of Russia. During these last years, part of the building of staff located on other side of the place of the castle as well as the Menchekov palate came to be added to the complex of the Hermitage.

The palate of Winter

The first palate of Winter is built in 1711; rebuilt in 1721 with died of Pierre Large the it is replaced in the years which follow by a work of the architect Domenico Trezzini. Elisabeth, who estimated that the resulting building missed size, the fact of rebuilding in 1754 by Francesco Rastrelli.

In 1837 the palate is completely burnt (the fire lasted 30 hours). The tsar Nicolas I {{er}} ordered his rebuilding with the identical one: in spring 1839, rebuilding works were completed. The building was not modified practically more thereafter. During the second world war, the palate of Winter is damaged during the head office of Leningrad but is repaired thereafter. The building is confronted today with the problems raised by the surge of the visitors, the instability of the marshy ground on which it was built like with the moisture generated by the proximity of Neva. Work of restoration was undertaken in 1984 and 2005.

The palate is today regarded as a jewel of the Russian Baroque art. The palate of Winter is of plan rectangular with large course interior; each frontage is decorated differently. Statues of 3,5 m decorate the exterior facade with the Palate.

Buildings of the Hermitage

The Small Hermitage built in a traditional style by Jean-Baptiste Vallin of Mothe was used between 1764 and 1775 of refuge for Catherine II and is smallest of the buildings of the complex of the Hermitage. It is in this building that Catherine stored the first paintings of which it acquired. The Old Hermitage, also called Large Hermitage , was built in 1787 by Georg Felten to shelter a collection in rapid growth: it is the building less decorated with the complex.

Leo von Kenze built between the 1839 and 1852 New Hermitage, which is perhaps its only work which escapes the style that had imposed to him Louis I of Bavaria and can be with his own artistic designs. It is the only building of the complex which is not along Neva. This building was also built to face the growth of the collections; one finds there, inter alia, the complete reconstitution of a loggia built by Raphaël in the Vatican. The statues of Atlases which are on its frontage, are perhaps most famous works of this type in the world.

The theater of the Hermitage was built between 1783 and 1787. The theater of the tsars was at the time the first theater of Saint-Pétersbourg. Parts were played there until 1796 and again as from 1989: in winter the Ballet Kirov, inter alia, assembles spectacles there. It is used today primarily as seat for the administration the Hermitage but preserves a scene and a theater. The theater is smallest of the city because it in the beginning was conceived for private representations for the family of the Tsar. The theater of the Hermitage is normally not opened with the public.

Collections

Among the 250 museums of the city, the Hermitage, with its 3 to 4 the most, annual visitor million is visited and most famous. It is one of the most important museums of art of the world. It lodges an enormous collection of European painting for the period running until 1917. The particularly tight fixing of paintings, which results from the density of the collections presented, received the name of fixing pétersbourgeois .

Collections of Prehistory and Antiquity

The museum preserves in its reserves 2,7 million parts; 65.000 parts are exposed in 350 rooms and gathered in 6 collections:

prehistoric culture
art and culture of Antiquity
art and culture of the Eastern people
art of Western Europe
Russian art

The most remarkable parts are, inter alia, the objects out of gold of the civilization of the Scythes, an immense collection of parts resulting from the cultures Roman and Etruscan as well as a series of objects preserved particularly well of the people of the Huns. One also finds a collection particularly rich of objects recalling the history of Siberia, like the writings of 4th and 5th centuries found in the cave of Mogao in China. The Hermitage exposes the oldest testimony of Mongolian writing - stone of Dchingis - as well as a great number of objects of the Russia kiévienne. Approximately a third of the exposed parts is coins including 120.000 for Antiquity, 220.000 for Eastern Asia and 300.000 for Russia. The room known as of the (French) Treasury recalls the history of the jewelry and the manufacture of the objects out of gold since the 3rd millenium before JC.

Objets d'art

Beside the universally known collections of art of Western Europe, the Hermitage also contains a number of varied parts. Thus one finds there a collection of icon S going back to the 12th century originating inter alia Kiev, Moscow and Novgorod, a collection of jewels of the workshop of Fabergé and a great number of historical costumes. The tsars also gathered objects resulting from the Russian craft industry such as carpets and porcelains; the collection of Russian clothes of the east particularly impressive. Among clothing one finds 300 parts of the wardrobe of Pierre the Large one.

Arts of Western and Eastern Europe

The constitution of the collections since the beginning was centered on the works of art of Eastern Europe and Western Europe, but acquisitions on this topic were particularly important at the 18th century. There existed at the time in all Europe a great number of collections of major works and the tsar had the reputation to be a large purchaser of the collections of value. In 1722 the largest collection of the time, that of the baron Joseph Antoine Croizat fell thus between the Russian hands. Among the works bought on this occasion appeared Danaë de Titien, the Holy Family of Raphaël, the portrait of a chambermaid of Rubens.

As most of Russian art since was transferred to the Musée from Art Russian, the heart of the collections is today again arts and the culture of Western and Eastern Europe. Paintings constitute large works gathered, but the Hermitage also exposes drawings, more than 50.000 Gravure S (Estampe S, Lithographie S, Eau-forte) S of several types and periods and many collections of objects of Article belong to the liturgical objects of It dated from, enamels and the sculptures on ivory dated from. One also finds with the Hermitage a great number of collections of Venetian, German and Spanish glassmakings of as well as earthenware. The museum shelters 14.000 porcelain parts coming from all great manufactures, in particular of Meissen and Sevres. Among the collections of art appear of important collections of carpet and pieces of furniture. The collection of Visual art counts 2000 parts, which does of them one of most important world; it comprises inter alia works of Michel-Angel and Rodin.

Collections of painting

One finds in 120 rooms of works primarily of painters Italian, French, Dutch and Flemish; there exist also collections of English and German works. Principal exposed paintings are the following ones (in the order of the exposure):

Italian painting

Italian painting forms the most important whole of the collection of painting of the traditional period. The exposed works most famous and most visited are two paintings of Léonard de Vinci which belong to a series of twelve universally known: the Madonna with the flower (1478) and the Madonna Litta (1490/91). The Madonna Conestabila (1502/03) and the Holy Family (1506) of Raphaël are even more famous. Beside these paintings one finds a reconstitution of the loggia of Raphael to the Vatican built clearly after the original one. The museum also shelters works of Titien, primarily of its last period, the Judith of Giorgione as well as paintings of Michelangelo, Paolo Veronese, Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, Luca Giordano, Salvator Rosa, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Tiepolo, Stefano Torelli and Francesco Guardi.

Spanish painting

The exposed painters most known are El Greco ( the Apostles Pierre and Paul ), Jusepe de Ribera ( Christ in cross - the first painting dated from the school of Spanish realism), Francisco de Goya ( Portrait of Antonia Zarate (about 1811, only one painting of this painter to the Hermitage) and Velazquez. Further one finds works of Murillo, Zurbaran and Juan Pantoja of Cruz.

Flemish painting

The Hermitage contains approximately 500 paintings of 140 artists of the major period of the Flemish school. It has in particular a great number of works of Pierre Paul Rubens and its pupils Anthonis van Dyck and Frans Snyders. The museum holds 22 paintings of only Rubens (of which Persée and Andromède and Bacchus ) and 19 drawings. This part of the collection was gathered as from 1769 when the Russian State acquired of 600 paintings Flemish and French near the heirs to Heinrich von Brühl S. Among those Ci are Bildnis eines Gelehrten and Bildnis eines alten Mannes in Belch of Rembrandt like 4 paintings of landscape of Jacob Izaaksoon van Ruisdael.

Dutch painting

Paintings of Rembrandt undoubtedly constitute the most known part of this part of the exposure: the museum contains more than 20 paintings what constitutes the largest collection preserved apart from the Dutch borders. The principal tables are Flora (1634), Danae (1630/40) and the return of the missing son (1668/69). One finds also approximately 1000 works of other Dutch painters. The other artists represented are Lucas van Leyden, Rogier van der Weyden, Jacob van Utrecht, Jan van Goyen, Jacob van Ruisdael, Jan Steen, Gerald for the third time Borch, Pieter de Hooch, Adriaen van Ostade, Isaac van Ostade, Paulus Potter, Willem Claesz Heda, Willem Kalf and Frans Hals.

French painting

The Hermitage shelters a great number of painting of the French traditional period. One finds works of Nicolas Poussin, Claude Gellée, paintings of the brothers the Dwarf, of Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Jean-Honore Fragonard, Hubert Robert, Jean-Baptiste Greuze and Jean Siméon Chardin. But the museum is particularly famous for its large collection of the French modern painters - until the historical rupture of 1917 - which makes it possible to embrace the evolution of the pictorial art of this time. Attached to this period one finds in particular 7 tables den Claude Monet, others of Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, 37 paintings of Henri Matisse and 31 works of Pablo Picasso.

The other painters represented are Lucas Cranach Old the, Johann Friedrich Tischbein, Caspar David Friedrich, Vincent van Gogh, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, like Wassily Kandinsky and Casimir Malevitch of the " Noir" quadrant;.

History

Catherine II: starts collections and the first constructions

The architectural Hermitage as well as complex as as collection of art was the work of the Russian empress Catherine II of Russia. In 1764 this one bought 225 paintings with the merchant of art J.A. Gotskowski; this one had it in the beginning acquired for the king of Prussia Frederic which had to give up it because the cases of the State had been emptied by the Guerre seven year old. In 1765 Catherine bought for the sum of 80.000 talers almost 1000 paintings of the collection of the count Brühl whose value had been estimated at 105.329 talers.

These tables were initially stored in the palate of Winter. Catherine acquired thereafter a great number of paintings, sometimes of the whole collections, partly to satisfy its passion of collector, partly to prove in Western Europe enlightened and cultivated character of Russia and Saint-Pétersbourg. Among the advisers who guided it in his acquisitions appeared inter alia the encyclopedist Melchior Grimm, Denis Diderot and of the Russian diplomats like Dimitri Golizyn and Alexandre Stroganov. In 1775 Catherine was made build close to the palate of Winter in the style which was with the mode at the time, the Small Hermitage by architect H.B. Vallin in order to be able to withdraw itself there on a purely private basis or with small groups of people. Soon a second building was built to be able to store new acquisitions; this building, the Old Hermitage, was designed by architect J.M. Velten in 1784. At the time, plays were given in the Small Hermitage; in 1783 Catherine made build a building dedicated to this use: the theater of the Hermitage. Almost at the same time was built in the wing located along the quay of the channel of the Winter, the loggia of Raphael a counterpart of the original builds with the Palais of the Vatican to Rome. In 1797 the collection had believed in the point to contain 3996 paintings.

Of Alexandre I. in Nicolas II: construction and opening of the museum to the public

During first half of the 19th century, the various collections were reorganized and increased with Eastern works of art and archaeological artefacts. The presentation of the tables by national school, adopted then, was an innovation; in 1825 for the first time rooms were open presenting the Russian art of the 18th century.

Until there, the collection of paintings was accessible only to the restricted circle from the members from the imperial court. In 1852 the tsar decided to separate the imperial residence from the showrooms of the collection of the Hermitage. Thus the collection could be, for the first time, accessible to the public although with important restrictions. Nicolas Ier made build the New Hermitage which communicated with the remainder of the Hermitage but had a separate entry giving access directly the museum. The building was built between 1839 and 1851 pennies the direction of the architect Vassili Petrovich Stassov and Jefimov on plans of Leo von Klenze.

Nicolas Ier in addition worked to increase the collections: he bought, inter alia, the collection gathered during the Napoleonean wars by Joséphine de Beauharnais, the widow of Napoleon to his heirs.

The Revolution of October

During the First World War part of the palate of Winter was used as hospital. A decisive event of the Revolution of October took place in these walls when the Bolsheviks stopped in the Palate of Winter the members of the government Kerinski. During the revolution of October, a great number of private Russian collections noble like those of the families Stroganov, Scheremetjev, Ioussoupov and Chouvalov were confiscated with the profit of the Hermitage.

Shortly after the takeover of the Bolsheviks, the imperial museum was famous museum of State and the buildings of the palates of Winter open to the public like showrooms. The first years of the Revolution, in Saint-Pétersbourg, were remembered in particular by the will to sensitize the public with the culture of Western Europe. The first minister of education formed after the Revolution of October accepted thus the name of public police station to the Lights ; this frame of mind also reigned on the Hermitage during the first years. Shortly after the revolution, the palate of Winter was devoted to readings, talks and projections of film. The first permanent exposure of Egyptian Antiquities opened its doors in 1920; in 1922 the Hermitage was entirely opened with the public, the free entry remaining during the first 5 years. Until the middle of the years 1930 a museum of the Revolution of October was installed in the palate of Winter beside the museum of the Hermitage.

Dismantling of the collections

In years 1920 of long negotiations were carried out with what became since the Musée Pouchkine in Moscow for the transfer of certain parts of the collections of the Hermitage. An agreement was found in 1927 and 700 paintings preserved in deposit were transferred to the Muscovite museum. Later 70 major works exposed to the Hermitage were also transferred among which Minerve of Veronese and the Combat of Joseph against Amorites of Poussin.

Within the framework of the installation of the first five-year plan of the USSR the Minister for the foreign trade decided to sell part of the collections of art of the museums of State while passing by the Antiquriat organization founded in 1925. Between 1928 and the 1933 merchants of art Matthiesen (Berlin), Colnaghi (London) and Knoedler (New York) bought 2.880 paintings of the Hermitage. Among this one 250 major works and 50 paintings of a certain value appeared.

The head office of Leningrad

During the Second world war the Hermitage was one of the targets of the German army during the head office of Leningrad. Those had received explicit orders not to save the city and Leningrad was subjected during several years to air raids and terrestrial which strongly damaged it. The buildings of the Hermitage were severely touched by 17 shells of artillery and two launched bombs of plane. The collections had been put at the shelter partly in the cellars of the museum; more than one million parts were sent to Ekaterinbourg. At the time 12.000 people lived with the Hermitage to preserve the collections and as far as possible to limit the damage produced by the bombs and the cold. The first exposure of the collections remained in the museum was shortly after open the lifting of the seat on November 7th, 1944; the official reopening of the museum with all its collections take place on November 5th, 1945. The repair of the damage caused by the seat was spread out over several years.

Post-war period until 1990

In 1948 most of the collection of the museum of Moscow dedicated to arts of the Occident was transferred to the Hermitage. Among these paintings appeared the collections of two patrons of the period tsarist Sergei Ivanovitch Schtchukin and Ivan Abramovitch Morosov. The majority of works of the 20th century of the Hermitage, in particular the tables of Pablo Picasso, come from this collection. These paintings, taxed with formalism during part of the Soviet era, could be state only after the death of Stalin. In addition the tables, which had been stolen during the Second world war by the Wehrmacht in the occupied territories then recovered by the Red Army , were also entrusted to the Hermitage. Since 1990 some of these tables were restored with their rightful owners of others are exposed in dedicated rooms.

Since the dismantling of the Soviet Union

Under the Soviet era, although the museum of the Hermitage passed then for one of the windows of the Soviet Union, it was hardly known in the Western countries. The direction of the museum and the principal decisions were made in practice by the Politburo. Since 1996 the Hermitage is even placed directly under the patronage of the President of Russia.

However since 1990 the museum has a greater autonomy although always suffering from financial problems: thus in 1996 the museum which asked for the equivalent of 60 million dollars the State, is lived to promise 40 million but accepted from them finally 18. The figures respectively for 1997 (90 /30/12 million) and 1998 (7,4/5,4/2,7) were still lower. The Hermitage forms part with the Théâtre Bolchoï and the Bibliothèque Lénine of the principal projects placed under protection of UNESCO to Russia. The budget of the museum which accounted for in the years 1990 1% of the budget of the Metropolitan museum, was raised thereafter to reach approximately 10%. 60% of the operation costs of the Hermitage are dealt with by the State. The 2.500 employees of the museum must often occupy the second employment the evening or the night to compensate for the weakness of the versed wages.

Since the opening of Russia, the Hermitage became for the foreign tourists the principal attraction of the country. A long-term co-operation was installation with the Musée Guggenheim. The Netherlands support also financially and technically the museum since the bursting of the Soviet Union. In 2004 the Hermitage opened an appendix with Amsterdam as well as a museum Guggenheim Ermitage with Las Vegas in collaboration with the Guggenheim museum. A project similar to London led to the creation of showrooms Ermitage to the Institut of Arts Courtauld. The museum works lately on the digitalization of its collections. Contrary to much of museums the catches of photographs at nonlucrative or teaching deprived ends are authorized.

Works exposed to the museum of the Hermitage

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