Rumyantsev Museum

The Rumyantsev Museum was the first public museum in Moscow. It grew out of the 1861 St. Petersburg transferred to Moscow Art collection of Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev, who gave this to the Russian people. His gift consisted primarily of books and manuscripts, as well as an extensive numismatic and an ethnographic collection. These stocks were, along with some 200 paintings and more than 20,000 stitches that had been separated from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, housed in the so-called Pashkov House, a building constructed 1784-1787 palace near the Kremlin. Tsar Alexander II was donated to the museum's opening yet the painting " Christ appears to the people " by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov.

The Moscow citizens who were deeply impressed by this selfless foundation of the Count, named after the founder of the new museum and left the gable the inscription install " by the State Chancellor Count Rumyantsev for the purpose of good education ." In subsequent years, the museum's collection grew by numerous other foundations and donations, so that the museum soon to be home to an important collection of Western European paintings, an extensive collection of antiques and a large collection of icons. This had the consequence that the premises of the Pashkov house soon became inadequate. To counter the oppressive narrowness, was built shortly after the turn of the century next to the Museum is another building, which should specifically include the collection of paintings. As a result of the October Revolution, the stocks grew so enormous, so the problem of space soon became urgent again. There were acute financial problems, as most funds were invested in the first few years earlier completed Pushkin Museum, which had long since become the successor of the Rumyantsev Museum. Therefore, it was decided in 1925 to dissolve the Rumyantsev Museum and distribute the collections to various other museums and institutions of the country. Parts of stocks, particularly those in Western European art and antiques, this also came in the Pushkin Museum.