Museum

Hermitage Museum

Saint Petersburg, Russia

Hermitage Museum is a museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. 366 works from its collection are in this catalog, including Titian and Paolo Veronese.

About Hermitage Museum

Overview

The State Hermitage Museum, located in Saint Petersburg, Russia, is one of the largest and oldest museums in the world. Founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great, it currently comprises a complex of six buildings along the Palace Embankment, including the iconic Winter Palace. The museum's collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items. These holdings include Western European art from the 13th to the 20th centuries, classical antiquities, and extensive Russian cultural artifacts, making it a premier institution for global art and history.

History & Founding

The Hermitage was founded by Catherine II of Russia in 1764. Originally, the collection was housed in the 'Small Hermitage,' a building constructed to display Catherine's private art collection. The museum's origins lie in the Empress's acquisition of significant European collections, including 4,000 paintings from old masters, 38,000 books, and 10,000 engraved gems during her lifetime. Catherine actively participated in competitive art gathering to gain European acknowledgment and portray Russia as an enlightened society, often identifying with the Roman deity Minerva as a patron of the arts.

Collection Highlights

The Western European Art collection spans from the 13th to the 20th centuries, featuring paintings, sculpture, and applied art. The collection of classical antiquities, occupying the ground floor of the Old and New Hermitage, includes Greek artifacts from the third millennium to the fifth century BC and features the massive Kolyvan Vase, weighing 19 tons. The museum also houses two treasure galleries with jewelry from the 4th millennium BC to the early 20th century, a Knights' Hall with Western European arms and armor from the 15th–17th centuries, and galleries dedicated to Italian, Spanish, French, and German fine art.

Significance & Legacy

The Hermitage complex was a creation of Catherine that solidified the site as not only a dwelling place for the Imperial family but also an important symbol and memorial to the imperial Russian state. The Palace Square, where the Winter Palace is located, served as St. Petersburg's nerve center, linking the city's most important buildings. Today, the palace and the museum are one and the same, preserving the symbolic value of the site. The museum has received the Order of Lenin and continues to be a federal cultural heritage site in Russia, attracting millions of visitors annually.