Russian Museum

The Russian Museum in St. Petersburg is next to the Tretyakov Gallery, the most complete collection of Russian art. The museum has about 315,000 objects from the fields of painting, sculpture, graphic art, crafts and folk art.

History

The collection was originally commissioned by Tsar Alexander III. created. Nicholas II acquired the Mikhailovsky Palace, in which it is housed today, as well as other works of art and completed the collection by parts inventories from the Hermitage and from the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo. After the October Revolution, the collection continued to grow through the expropriation of the Russian nobility. Almost the entire holdings of Russian art in the Hermitage also went over to the Russian Museum.

Building

The main building of the museum, the building complex of the Mikhailovsky Palace, was designed by the architect Carlo Rossi 1819-1825. The outside of the main building as well as the west wing have remained unchanged.

For Russian Museum include three other palaces where various important collections are housed and regular exhibitions take place: The Stroganov Palace, Mikhailovsky (Engineers' ) Castle and the Marble Palace. In addition, today is also the house of Peter the Great ( Peter's first, simple wooden houses from the time the city was founded ) Petrovskaya on - shore and its Summer Palace in the summer garden branches of the Russian Museum.

Collections

Today, the collection includes works of iconography from the 11th century through to Socialist Realism and the unofficial and in Soviet times unpublished art from the 20th century. Among the best known works include " The Apostle Peter " and "Paul the Apostle " (both 1408 ) by Andrei Rublev, " The Last Day of Pompeii " ( 1833) by Karl Briullov, " Christ appears before the people " ( 1836-1855 ) by Alexander Ivanov, " The Volga Barge Haulers " (1870-1873) by Ilya Repin, "walk" (1917 ) by Marc Chagall, " Suprematism " ( 1915-1916 ) by Kazimir Malevich and " composition No. 223 " (1919) by Wassily Kandinsky.

On March 10, 1995, the Ludwig Museum in the Russian Museum was opened in the Marble Palace, which is an extensive collection of international contemporary art. The collection includes important work since 1945, including Jasper Johns, Pablo Picasso, Jeff Koons, Jean -Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Ilya Kabakov, Immendorff and Gottfried Helnwein.