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Hermitage museum
Hermitage museum is the
largest museum of Russia, St.Petersburg top
attraction and one of the largest museums in the world.
It rivals with such world
museums as Louvre in France, the National Gallery and the
British museum in England, Prado museum in Spain. Its
collection numbers over 3 000 000 works of art with major
display occupying 365 rooms of the Winter palace,
Little, Old and New Hermitage, and General
Staff building. The museum consists of Prehistoric, Antique,
Western European, Russian, Oriental, Numismatics art
departments and two Treasure reserves (Gold rooms).
The 1st Hermitage
building - the Winter Palace - was built in 1762 by
order of Empress Elizabeth (the Italian architect Rastrelli).
It was meant to become the main winter residence of Russian
czars. The name Hermitage was given to a future
museum by Catherine the Great who dreamt of her
personal art collection to appear close to the Winter
Palace. The Little Hermitage (French - 'Ermitage' -
an 'abode of a hermit') really was an abode of Catherine who
only showed her precious art to distinguished guests and
friends.
Hermitage art collection
originally consisted of Flemish and Dutch art. It was a
result of the first purchase made by Catherine the Great
from Berlin art-dealer Gotskovsky. Further on, Hermitage
collection was greatly enriched with over 600 paintings of
Saxon prime-minister Count de Brule, over 400 paintings of
the French aristocrat Pierre Crozat, scandalous purchase
from the heirs of the English prime-minister Sir Robert
Walpole. Catherine the Great would hunt for more: she learnt
about interesting deals and auction sales in Europe, spent
enormous sums of money striking bargains with European
nobility and royalty, sent Russian diplomats and ambassadors
abroad to purchase valuable art pieces, made friends with
European art-connoisseurs, followed advice of her friend,
French philosopher Deni Didrot.
Since Catherine's time,
collecting works of art became the royal tradition. Each
emperor would enrich the Hermitage collection: Alexander I
purchased Josephine de Beauharnais's collection from
Malmaison, Nickolas I and Alexander II enlarged the
collection of Greek and Roman antiques.
Hermitage remained a closed
private royal collection until the middle of XIX century
when the royal family decided to partly open it for noble
visitors and the New Hermitage building was added to Winter
palace complex.
Only after Bolshevik revolution
of 1917 it opened its treasures to the public. By then its
collection was greatly enriched with the nationalized
nobility's collections.
The hardest times started in
1941 when Nazis besieged Leningrad and the museum had to be
abandoned. Its collection was evacuated to Siberia, only
empty picture frames left on the empty palace walls. Long
years of restoration followed afterwards. And again the
Hermitage boasts of the world second largest collection of
French impressionists, second largest collection of
Rembrandt, priceless works of Leonardo da Vinci, Rafael,
Titian, Rubens, Michelangelo, Caravaggio and more.
Even if you are not an art-lover
or a historian, you will find points of interest for
yourself: medieval knights exhibition at the New Hermitage,
ancient mummies display at the Egyptian vestibule,
breathtaking interiors, imposing staircases, richly
decorated halls and czars' living rooms of the Winter
Palace.
During the tour you will see the
masterpieces of old masters, all highlights of European art
collection, large collection of French impressionists,
admire shining Winter palace halls and galleries.
Gold Room - Treasure
gallery of
the Hermitage
open:
10.30 - 18.00, Sundays - 10.30 - 17.00, closed on
Mondays
Tourists' Remarks
" ... The Hermitage was worth our full day visit. A major
highlight was viewing the imposing stairways, halls and czar
"living rooms" (rooms 188-198) of the 400-room structure.
Here the attraction was history, as we viewed the draped,
gilded, and jeweled chambers where Russian royalty once
cavorted. In the green-pillared Malachite Hall the
Provisional Government that briefly succeeded the czars held
its last meeting before being arrested in the adjacent
dining room by the Bolshevik forces that stormed in from
neighboring Palace Square. The Hermitage art collection,
three million pieces, occupies most of the Hermitage
structure. We ended up concentrating on just the paintings
by Rembrandt, Rubens, Leonardo, Rafael, El Greco, Goya,
Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, and Matisse…to drop a few names.
The czars spared no expense in developing their collection
..."
------------
" ...
We are no art lovers, but people say
you just have to visit the Hermitage when you’re in St.
Petersburg. It contains the complete art collection of the
Russian state and is located in the Winter Palace and nearby
buildings. Once inside, our mouths open with awe. In the
most beautiful decorated rooms, enormous amounts of gold and
silverware are exhibited, among which two golden carriages.
The living rooms and library of the tsars are supposedly in
their original state in all their glory. We are amazed, even
before we reach the rooms with the actual art collections,
arranged by the different countries and regions they come
from.
The first rooms are filled with collections
from the middle and far east, like woodcuttings and ivory.
After that we reach the European art: sculptures and
paintings. It is not really our cup of tea, but we search
for the famous artists, and especially the Dutch paintings.
There is a lot, and we have to move on if we want to see the
rest of the rooms. In those rooms, the harnesses get our
attention but we now especially focus on the rooms
themselves. Each room is decorated differently with a lot of
gold, silver, or silk, in one word amazing. At the end of
the afternoon this is what sticks with us: you just have to
see the Hermitage, if only for the interior of the Winter
Palace ..."
------------
" ...
With the possible exception of the Louvre, there is no
museum in the world that rivals the Hermitage in size and
quality. Its collection is so large that it would take years
to view it in its entirety--at last count, there were nearly
three million works on exhibit. The museum is especially
strong in Italian Renaissance and French Impressionist
paintings, as well as possessing outstanding collections of
works by Rembrandt, Picasso, and Matisse. Visitors should
also take advantage of its excellent Greek and Roman
antiquities collection and its exhibits of Siberian and
Central Asian art. Not least among the attractions of the
Hermitage is the museum itself, with its fine interior
decoration and architectural detail ..."
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" ...
We spent a beautiful afternoon inside one of
the largest and most extensive museums in the world. We were
by turns overwhelmed and amazed at the incredible numbers of
rooms filled with incredible numbers of gorgeous pieces of
art. Many were extremely famous. We saw works by Da Vinci,
Renoir, Michelangelo, Rodin, Picasso, Rembrant, and on and
on ..."
---------------
" ...
My second visit to the Hermitage is as
fascinating as my first. This is without question the most
impressive art museum in the world, with works dating back
to the Stone Age. Through the maze of massive elaborate
rooms are displayed countless masterpieces--sculptures by
Michelangelo and Bernini; paintings by DaVinci, Renoir, and
Monet; ancient marble sculptures of Jupiter, Dionysis, and
Mercury.... Walking around the Hermitage, it is difficult to
visualize this as an actual residence or palace of the tsars
until you find yourself walking through the recreations of
those rooms--the White Room, Catherine the Great's' Bourdois
in red, the Gold Room.... You leave awestruck and a bit
exhausted from all the walking and the blur of masterpieces
you have seen throughout its six buildings!"
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" ... I have visited St. Petersburg 3
times, I have visited the Hermitage every time. While indeed
I have seen some parts of it more than thrice; neither I,
nor you, will ever become bored with it. a man from
the USA I met, who had lived in SPB for 10 years, warned me
'no matter how long you live here, no matter how long you
live, you will never see it all!'...
"
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" ... The building itself is a
series of truly magnificent rooms, 12 miles of them. The
floors are magnificent, the ceilings are magnificent, the
walls are magnificent, the colour schemes are glorious. The
doors are so astonishing that Meg goes through a period of
repeating "Just look at this door" non stop for about ten
minutes and I have to draw her attention to the Leonardo da
Vinci on the nearby wall. Ok but that is just the fabric.
They have the finest collection of paintings, sculptures,
jewellery, costumes you will see anywhere. It is quite
common to find galleries in other places where they have a
few old masters and they fill the spaces on the walls with
anything else that is only notable for being old. Usually
the are rather dull portraits. Here every item was worth ten
or fifteen minutes...
"
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