ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
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A Place of Solitude
A well known sight in St. Petersburg is the Hermitage Museum (meaning a place of solitude in French), which was an extension of the Winter Palaces of Peter the Great. It was built by the Italian-born architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1754-62) under the reign of Elizabeth I. However, Rastrelli was dismissed by Catherine II in 1762 and the construction was then continued by several other foreign architects. The history of the Hermitage as a museum began with Peter the Great, who himself bought the famed marble sculpture called Taurida Venus (a Roman copy of of the Greek original done in the 3rd century B.C.) and a number of works by Rembrandt. During the reign of Catherine II, the imperial collection occupied rooms in the Hermitage wing of the Winter Palaces, which gave its name to the museum. In 1764, the Berlin merchant Gotzkowski sent a collection of 225 paintings to the Russian Empress Catherine II as a repayment of debt to Frederick II. Together with more works of art purchased by Catherine II in London, Paris and Germany, the foundation of the Hermitage's rich and diverse artistic treasures was born. A fire swept through and devastated the Winter Palace in December 1837, but the imperial collections were fortunately saved. It was decided in 1839 that a New Hermitage should be built to house the collections properly and to display them to the public. Nicholas I inaugurated the new museum in 1852. Due to the tight schedule of travel, I had only 2 hours to spend in the Hermitage. The depth of the art works there easily rivaled those of any world-class museums such as New York's Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum or the Louvre in Paris, if not surpassing any one or even all put together. It's a place I will definitely return some day in the future to enjoy. Attached is a picture of me at the back of the Hermitage museum. |
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