The Hermitage guide

Since 1954 the Department has regularly sent out expeditions to various regions of the Russian Federation, in order to discover and collect examples of ancient Russian art. As a result, the Museum came into possession of over 150 works of early Russian art, including some thirteenth-century icons, such as a Si Nicholas by a painter of the Novgorod school, a group of fifteenth- to seventeenth-century icons by northern artists, and a sixteenth-century Our Lady of Smolensk, an icon from the Yaroslavl region.

Since 1958 the Department has been carrying on archaeological excavations in Pskov. Among the more remarkable recent findings are over 500 specimens of pendant seals — lead plaques with stamped designs and inscriptions — dating from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. In 1974 the archaeologists uncovered some precious late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century frescoes on the walls of the Church of the Intercession, built in 1398. The church was almost completely buried under earth fortifications constructed in 1701, and this saved both the building and its frescoes from subsequent destruction.

One of the most important sources of new accessions is the work of the Hermitage Purchasing Commission; another, donations made by private collectors. Among the more recent acquisitions, a collection of works by Russian craftsmen, bequested to the Museum by Sergei Pavlov, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences, deserves particular attention. It contains forty-eight beautiful pieces of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century glassware, and over thirty pieces of silverwork, some of which bear the marks of well-known silversmiths.

During the last decade alone, the collections of the Department have almost doubled in size and now number over 285,000 items. In their present state they provide a fairly complete picture of Russian cultural history from the sixth to the nineteenth century. The permanent exhibitions illustrate the evolution of Russian representational art, architecture, literature, education, science, and technology. The composite arrangement of materials makes it possible to show more clearly the interrelations between the various phenomena of cultural life in the process of social development, and to give an idea of the great wealth of Russia’s cultural heritage.

The early periods in the history of Russian culture are represented by a rich variety of items. Most interesting of all are archaeological artefacts, which include several widely known complexes of finds, such as those unearthed in Kiev on the sites of the Desiatinnaya Church and the St Michael Golden-Domed Monastery; some material uncovered in Novgorod and on the fortified site of Raiki in the vicinity of Berdichev; and, finally, the Vladimir hoard of gold and silver articles. The superb craftsmanship of ancient Vladimir jewellers is well illustrated by gold kolt pendants, beads, riasnos (elaborate chains for kolt pendants), and agraffes with designs of the finest filigree work. The splendid collection of objects (over fourteen thousand items) found in 1957—64 during Mikhail Karger’s excavation of the ancient Russian town of Iziaslavl was also placed in the Hermitage. It is one of the richest complexes of finds relating to the culture and art of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Rus. The collection of manuscripts and early printed books has grown considerably over the last few years. It includes such magnificent specimens of Russian book decoration as fifteenth-century illuminated manuscripts of the Gospels, with miniatures and head ornaments; The Apostle and Ostrog Bible, printed by Ivan Fiodorov; a Psalter rendered in verse by Simeon Polotsky, printed in Moscow in 1680 and illustrated with an engraving by Afanasy Trukhmensky after a drawing by Simon Ushakov; and seventeenth-century Gospels in embossed bindings.

The collection of thirteenth- to eighteenth-century icons and eleventh- and twelfth-century frescoes is small but worthy of note. The Kiev, Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov, and northern schools of painting are represented. Among the oldest examples of work by northern artists are some thirteenth- to sixteenth-century icons, of which a few bear inscriptions showing the date of execution, the painter’s and the patron’s names, and the place of origin. One of the early works of the Pskov school of icon painters is the Manifestation of Our Lord dating from the beginning of the fourteenth century. This icon is very close to the well-known frescoes in the Snetogorsky monastery near Pskov, which were executed in 1313. Among the earliest works owned by the Department are the fifteenth-century icon of St Theodore the Recruit and St Theodore Stratelates, of the Novgorod school, and the early sixteenth-century icons of St Nicholas, The Transfiguration, and The Nativity.