The definitive volumes celebrating the collections of the Hermitage Museum. For nearly 250 years the State Hermitage has been one of Europe’s most palatial museums. It encompasses more than three million works of art and artifacts displayed within a spectacular architectural ensemble, the heart of which is the famed Winter Palace. The two volumes of The Hermitage Collections capture the masterpieces and discuss the history that make this world-famous institution a cultural destination and a global treasure. Many of its rarely reproduced works are included in these two volumes, such as The Raphael Loggias (as copied from the Vatican), Michelangelo’s Crouching Boy, The Gonzaga Cameo, Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna with a Flower (The Benois Madonna), and Titian’s St. Sebastian. The Hermitage collections were developed beginning in 1764 by Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. Today, the Hermitage collections constitute one of the great art museums of the world.

About the Author:

Oleg Yakovlevich Neverov is a chief researcher and curator at the State Hermitage, specializing in ancient glyptics. Dmitry Pavlovich Alexinsky, a junior researcher at the State Hermitage, is an antiquity specialist. Dr. Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky has been the director of the State Hermitage Museum since 1991.

In a memoir, the museum’s longtime director takes the reader on a private tour of this global treasure. Holding one of the largest collections of Western art in the world, the Hermitage is also a product of Russia and its dramatic history. Founded by Empress Catherine the Great in 1764, the stunning Winter Palace was built to house her growing collection of Old Masters and to serve as a home for the imperial family. Tsars came and went over the years, artworks were acquired and sold, buildings were burned down in terrible fires, and still the collections grew. After the violent upheavals of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the palaces and collections were opened to the public.

Now, in an unprecedented collection of illuminating essays, Piotrovsky explores the cultural history of a collection as rich in adventure as art. From fascinating intrigues to revelatory scholarship on the collection’s incredible art and artifacts, My Hermitage is a profound and captivating story of art’s timelessness and how it brings people together.

About the Author:

Mikhail Piotrovsky has been the director of the State Hermitage Museum since 1992 and has dedicated his career to making the treasures of the museum accessible to individuals and institutions around the world.

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Пролистать книгу My Hermitage: How the Hermitage Survived Tsars, Wars, and Revolutions to Become the Greatest Museum in the World

Highlights from the palatial Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, are beautifully reproduced in an accessible volume celebrating the museum's 250th anniversary. For 250 years, the State Hermitage Museum has been one of the world's most palatial and significant museums. The Hermitage collections were developed beginning in 1764 by Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, and now encompass more than 3 million works of art and artifacts displayed within a spectacular architectural ensemble, the heart of which is the famed Winter Palace. Now, on this important anniversary, this stunning volume captures the masterpieces that make this world-famous institution a cultural destination and a global treasure.

The Hermitage: 250 Masterworks explores this sumptuous collection in the manner of a private tour, showcasing the museum's extraordinary and uniquely underpublished treasures: no other institution has thirty-six Rembrandts; works by Italian Renaissance artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Titian; Spanish artists such as Velazquez, Ribera, and Murillo; Flemish baroque artists such as van Dyck, Rubens, and Jan Brueghel the Elder; impressionist and post-impressionist works by Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Degas; and modern paintings by Matisse, Picasso, Malevich, and Kandinsky. Priceless antiquities, feats of mechanical engineering such as the famous Peacock Clock, and works of sculpture and decorative arts will also be shown. With lavish reproductions accompanied by texts by the museum's leading curators, this volume is sure be cherished by art lovers around the world.

About the Author:

Mikhail Piotrovsky has been the director of the State Hermitage Museum since 1991 and has dedicated his career to making its treasures accessible to individuals and institutions around the world.

A stunning volume showcasing the magnificent court dress of the Russian Empire, culled from the authoritative collection at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, photographed with the Winter Palace as a backdrop. Prerevolutionary Russia was renowned for the glamorous and luxurious lifestyles of the nobility, with their opulent palaces and glittering social life. Now, this lavish volume reveals the incredible clothing they wore, from everyday dress and ceremonial attire (traditional holidays outfits and military uniforms) to dress for special occasions, including elaborate evening wear for theater and musical events and fancy masquerade balls. Celebrated for luxurious materials and impeccable craftsmanship, the dress of the Russian nobility was haute couture at its finest. With beautiful photography and details highlighting the hand-spun silks and lace and jeweled embroideries, Russian Splendor highlights the glamour of this gilded age and offers a fascinating window into a vanished world. Essays by Hermitage Museum curators, alongside historic Russian paintings and photographs, place the clothing in a historical context, revealing the rich cultural layers and artistic influences of czarist Russia.

About the Author:

Mikhail Piotrovsky has been the director of the State Hermitage Museum since 1992 and has dedicated his career to making the treasures of the museum accessible to individuals and institutions around the world. Georgy Vilinbakhov, Evelina Tarasova, Tamara Korshunova, Nina Tarasova, and Julia Plotnikova are top researchers and curators at the Historic Costume Department of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

This book explores the connections between French and Russian art from the mid-nineteenth century until the 1920s, a period that witnessed the emergence of some of the most important developments in modern art. It includes outstanding examples of Salon painting, Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism in France and related movements in Russia such as The Wanderers, Constructivism and Suprematism. It documents key episodes in the story of this fascinating exchange. For example, the vital role played by the two great Russian collectors Ivan Morosov and Sergei Shchukin, whose pre-eminent collections of French art were an inspiration to the Russian avant-garde; the ballet impresario Diaghilev's promotion of Russian art in France in 1906; and Matisses' visit to Russia in 1911.