The State Hermitage Museum is a world-renowned museum. It is located in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is known to be one of the oldest and classic museums of all time. It has a huge collection that includes over 3 million works of art and world culture artefacts.
It was founded by the Russian leader Catherine the Great in 1764 and she started making a collection of noble paintings from Berlin. It was opened to the public in 1852.
Quick Facts: –
- The State Hermitage Museum is now housed in five different but interconnected buildings.
- The name of this museum has been derived from the French word ‘ermitage’ which means a place of solitude.
- The most famous part of this museum is The Winter Palace which was constructed in 1754 – 1762 by the Italian architect B. F. Rastrelli.
- The Winter Palace has more than 1057 rooms, 117 ladders, 1945 windows, 1786 doors.
- It was once the official residence of the Romanov Tsars.
- Until 1917, the State Hermitage Museum housed only imperial collections.
- The Red Army in Germany looted paintings and hid them in the museum building in 1945. These looted paintings were first exhibited as ‘Hidden Treasures Revealed’.
- If you spend one minute looking at each piece of art on display, you would require 11 years to see them all.
- The collection includes Italian Renaissance, Italian and Spanish fine art, German, Swiss, French fine art, Neoclassical, Impressionist, and post-Impressionist paintings.
