A special place among the state rooms belongs to the 1812 War Gallery which Alexander Pushkin made the subject of one of his poems. It was constructed to Carlo Rossi’s designs in 1826 and restored after the 1837 fire. The gallery contains 332 portraits of generals who took part in the 1812 War and the foreign campaigns of 1813—14. The pictures were painted by the English artist George Dawe and by the Russians Alexander Poliakov and Vasily Golike.
The Great Throne Room (designed in 1792—1795 by Quarenghi; rebuilt after the 1837 fire by Stasov) is decorated in a colour scheme of white and gold: white Carrara marble and gilded bronze. In 1948 a mosaic map of the Soviet Union, made from Russian coloured stones, was installed here. The room also houses an exhibition of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century carved stones.
In 1980 the Palace of Alexander Menshikov, one of the closest associates of Peter the Great, was placed, after years of reconstruction and restoration, at the disposal of the Hermitage. Situated on the University Embankment, the Palace is a most interesting monument of the history and architecture of St Petersburg in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. It is planned to unfold here an exhibition devoted to the Russian culture of the Petrine period.
The first eleven halls are already open to visitors. They include a walnut room and four rooms in which the ceiling and walls are faced with Dutch tiles.
G. Komelova, V. Vasilyev
170
St Nicholas of Mozhaisk
Wooden sculpture. Russia. 17th century
171
Silver cup with enamel inlays
Russia, Solvychegodsk. 17th century
172
Bronze candelabrum
Russia. Mid-19th century
173
Lidded silver tureen
Russia. Made by the craftsman Kuzov. 1790
174
Carlo Bartolommeo Rastrelli. 1675—1744. Russia
Peter the Great. 1723—30
175
Glass goblet engraved with ships
Russia, St Petersburg. Imperial Glassworks. 18th century
176
Steel casket
Russia, Tula. Made by the craftsman Leontyev. Late 18th century
177
Ivan Chessky. 1777/82—1848. Russia
Spit of Vasilyevsky Island. Watercolour. 1817
178
Andrei Martynov. 1768—1826. Russia
View of Nevsky Prospekt from the Anichkov Palace
Watercolour. C. 1810
179
Dmitry Levitsky. 1735—1822. Russia
Portrait of Yakov Bilibin. 1810s
180
Karl Briullov. 1799—1852. Russia
Portrait of Sophia Bobrinskaya. 1849
181
Alexei Tyranov. 1808—1859. Russia
Interior of the Winter Palace Cathedral. 1829
182
Nikifor Krylov. 1802—1831. Russia
Portrait of Vladimir Apraxin. 1829
183
Peter Ernest Rockstuhl. Russia
Portrait of Alexander Osterman-Tolstoy. 1800s
184
Vase of ruby-coloured glass
Russia, St Petersburg, Imperial Glassworks. Mid-19th century
185
Steel samovar decorated with dolphins
Russia, Tula. Early 19th century
186
Silver ash-tray in the form of a dolphin
Russia. Made by Y. Rappoport, Fabergé firm. Late 19th or early 20th century
187
Silver vase (hock-cup) painted in enamel
Russia, Ovchinnikov’s firm. Late 19th century
188
Silver jug with swans
Russia. Made by the craftsman Grigoryev. 1825
189
Cashmere gown and Kolokoltsov-style shawl
Russia. 1820s
190
Porcelain figurines
Russia, St Petersburg, Imperial Porcelain Factory. Second half of the 18th century
The Department of Numismatics
The collections of the Numismatic Department are well known throughout the Soviet Union and abroad. They include mint cabinets containing classical, Byzantine, Oriental, Western European, and Russian coins; a cabinet for medals and orders; three repositories of which one contains specimens reflecting the 1500-year history of Western European coinage; a collection of numismatic antiquities; and, finally, a library, the best in the country, totalling more than 200,000 volumes on numismatics, sphragistics, heraldry, and genealogy. In all, the Department houses 1,100,000 items, many of which are on display on the third floor of the Winter Palace.
The exact date of the foundation of the collection is unknown, but it is traditionally considered to be 1771, when the M. Bremsen collection was purchased. Documentary evidence shows that a number of important acquisitions were subsequently made, and these, together with the M. Bremsen collection, formed the nucleus of a Münzkabinett (mint cabinet). As was often the case in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the mint cabinet was attached to the library, and its first keeper A. Luzhkov held the post of librarian.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Hermitage collection totalled over 15,000 coins. The mint cabinet changed places several times and in 1852 its collections were assembled in two rooms on the second floor of the New Hermitage — the present-day Armorial Hall and a corner room with two tiers of windows. The latter room, decorated with medallion-shaped reliefs on the walls, was called the Medal Room and, later, the Coin Room. Special mahogany showcases for coins can still be seen in the Department’s exhibition halls. Coin- and medal-cases were kept on the upper gallery where the numismatists worked. The Department occupied these premises for almost a century, until June 1941.
In 1864 the Münzkabinett was formed into an independent section of coins and medals. At this time the collections totalled about 100,000 examples of numismatic art. By 1917 the number of items had increased to over a quarter of a million. During the Soviet period the numismatic stocks of the Hermitage have grown more than fourfold. From the very beginning entire collections and individual rare coins were acquired for the Münzkabinett both at home and abroad. Suffice it to mention the J. Reichel collection; its 5,000 items of Russian origin were bought by the Hermitage in 1851, and the remaining 40,000 coins and medals mainly of Western European provenance came to the Museum at a later date. The C. Thieme collection, purchased in 1906 in Leipzig, contained 33,000 copper coins, token money and counters, and the collection of the Pskov merchant F. Pliushkin, bought in 1914, comprised 38,000 coins, ingots and several hoards of coins. In 1918 the Hermitage acquired about 2,000 Byzantine coins from the heiress of the well-known collector I. Tolstoy. The Museum was also given very generous donations. Thus, the widow of Academician V. Velyaminov-Zernov presented the Hermitage with 18,000 Oriental coins; in 1917 Academician I. Tolstoy donated his father’s marvellous collection of Russian coins, and in 1928 Academician S. Platonov handed over to the Hermitage a gold medallion of Constantine the Great (A.D. 306—337), found in a trench on the Southwest Front in 1916. Several years ago, a large number of coins, medals and badges were transferred to the Hermitage by Academician B. Bykhovsky.