The STaTe hermiTage muSeum annual reporT

temporary exhIbItIons
a glaSS fanTaSy. ancienT
glaSS from The hermiTage
collecTion
There are several reasons for being amazed
and excited by the exhibition. First of all, there
is the great age of the glass artifacts, some of
which have survived from the time before the
birth of Christ! According to everyday logic,
they were bound to shatter at some point
during so many years. But in some mysterious
way they have managed to come down
to us. Secondly, one is spellbound by the exquisite
beauty, variety and intricacy of the
craftsmanship. We recognize glasses, cups,
amphorae, jugs, flagons. But at the exhibition
we learn about the existence of amphoriskoi,
askoi, aryballoi, alabasters, phalerae, pyxides,
and many others.
Yelena Druzhinina, “The Glass Fantasy
of an Incredible Age”, Intellektualny
Kapital, 13 October 2010
The craftsmen have learned to create objects
out of the most delicate glass, so that it has
hardly any weight in the hand, and also to colour
them with pure and deep colours using
various metal oxides. Sometimes the glass
blowers played on the contrast between the
transparent background and the image applied
by means of opaque enamel pigments.
A splendid example from the exhibition is
a bright green amphora with a painted floral
ornament of vine and ivy shoots and leaves
with birds nesting in them.
ARTinvestment.ru, “A Glass Fantasy.
Ancient Glass from the Hermitage
Collection”, 27 October 2010
flemingS Through The eyeS
of david TenierS The younger
When I was a child, I loved looking at one of
Teniers’ paintings, Monkeys in the Kitchen.
Later I learned that the monkeys’ antics were
the artist’s specialty – he portrayed them frolicking
about in the kitchens, barber’s salons,
and pubs.
Although he was happy to accept any commissions
(landscapes, portraits, mythological
and everyday scenes, hunting scenes),
his favourite subject was the folk revels like
A Peasant Wedding which resides in the Hermitage.
Yelena Bobrova, “Mischievous
Monkeys”, Sankt-Peterburgsky Kurier,
21 October 2010
The Hermitage possesses 33 paintings from
the artist’s mature period. In his pictures,
peasants dance at a wedding, play bowls
and dice, and have fun in a tavern. He painted
festivals, rural fairs, and sometimes also
scenes of peasant labour – harvesting and
haymaking.
Kultura Sankt-Peterburga, “Flemings
through the Eyes of David Teniers
the Younger”, 18 October 2010
TiTian. madonna and child wiTh
sT. caTheRine (madonna wiTh
a RabbiT). from The collecTion
of The louvre
An exhibition of a masterpiece by the Venetian
artist Titian Vecellio Madonna and Child
with St. Catherine (Madonna with a Rabbit).
From the Collection of the Louvre has opened
at the Hermitage. This was Louvre’s return
loan in exchange for a painting by Paolo Veronese.
As the Hermitage curators explain,
the painting was chosen deliberately: with
all its seeming simplicity it reflects the ideas
novel for the period, which ultimately led
to the emergence of the landscape as an independent
genre.
Yevgenia Tsinkler, “Titian’s Masterpiece
Madonna with a Rabbit
Has Arrived to the Hermitage from the
Louvre”, Rossiyskaya Gazeta,
28 October 2010
“This is Titian on the brink of his mature period,
– says the curator of the exhibition, the
leading research worker of the Department
of Western European Fine Arts Irina Artemyeva,
– We have here a “farewell” to the style
of Giorgone and the art which used to be the
leitmotif of Venetian art for the first three
decades of the 16th century. Here everything
is concentrated, and the detail is of utmost
importance – this is not going to be typical
for Titian’s later work.”
Alina Tsiopa, “The Madonna with
a Rabbit Comes to St. Petersburg”,
Nevskoye Vremya, 28 October 2010
All the details of this expressive scene are
painted with loving meticulousness. The apple
and the grapes in the half-open basket
at Mary’s feet, the strawberry leaves and berries,
the outline of a distant church tower. And
these are not here by chance. However the
essence of the painting is not in these details,
but in the overall poetic impression it pro-
duces. The art of the master is remarkable –
in one scene, he manages to convey all his
admiration for this world, all his love for life
and a wonderful harmony between man and
surrounding nature. This is in a way a Utopia,
a dream of ideal life in a Universe ordained by
God in a perfect way. But this dream is so realistic
and convincing that it is easy to believe
that it can come true.
Yekaterina Emme, “Madonna
with a Rabbit”, InfoSkop,
October 2010
a romanTic view. duTch
and Belgian painTingS
of The 19Th cenTury from
The rademaKerS collecTion
The start of each century marks a certain
change in aesthetic taste. In our time
this is evident, among other things, in the
growing interest in nineteenth-century art,
which is not limited to textbook Romanticism,
Realism, and Impressionism. This is
why the Hermitage presents the artists littleknown
in Russia today, although 150 years
ago paintings by Verboeckhoven, Willems,
Jenisson, Koekkoek, Meyer, Schelfhaut
would be an expected attribute of any important
private collection.
Yelena Druzhinina, “There will Always
be Romantics”, Intellektualny Kapital,
30 October 2010
The visitors to the museum will see 70 works
of art from the largest private collection
of Dutch and Flemish paintings in Europe.
At present, it includes over a hundred prominent
Romantic paintings. The exhibition will
include nearly all the topics which were of interest
for Romantic artists: summer and winter
landscapes, seascapes, cityscapes, stilllifes,
portraits, and genre scenes.
Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti,
“A Romantic View”, October 2010
The hoard of mrS. liKhachyova
The exhibition represents extremely rare
historic and household items made of silver,
which had belonged to a rich St. Petersburg
family before the Revolution. All of them
were acquired together. In 1978, a hoard of
around two hundred pieces was discovered
at the Voskhod shoe factory, which is located
in No 52, 3rd Line, Vasilievsky Island, which
had housed the Nevskaya Wallpaper Factory
since the start of the 20th century. Some
of them bore presentation inscriptions addressed
to Maria Likhachyova, the owner of
the shoe factory, marking memorable and
festive occasions.
Andrei Yerofeyev, “The Likhachyova
Hoard at the Hermitage”,
Parlamentskaya Gazeta,
10 December 2010
Commemorative dishes and cups, frames and
stands for crystal vases, teapots, milk jugs,
sugar basins, tableware, cups, and salt cellars
made of silver by the Russian craftsmen
of the second half of the 19th – early 20th
centuries in different techniques reflect a variety
of forms and decorations. The most numerous
group of items are those made in the
so-called Russian style. The earliest of them,
a salt cellar shaped like a washtub, is a rare
example of the interpretation of a traditional
theme in the applied art of the first quarter
of the 19th century.
Tea.ru, “An Exhibition of Old Teapots
Opens at the Winter Palace”,
14 December 2010
The roman Two-headed eagle.
from The archaeological muSeum
aT alicanTe, Spain
An exhibition of one item – a Roman twoheaded
eagle – is opening at the State Hermitage
on St. George’s Day. This exhibit is a
unique fragment of a bronze sculpture found
during the excavations of the Roman town of
Lucentum in 2005. The statue’s ring finger
bears a ring with an image of a staff which
was used by Roman augurs as a sign of belonging
to the priestly rank.
Interfax–Severo-Zapad, “A Handle
of a Roman Sword with a Two-Headed
Eagle will be on Display at the Hermitage”,
St. Petersburg, 9 December 2010
The State Hermitage is displaying one of the
first images of a two-headed eagle in history.
The bronze hand holding a sword is a fragment
of a statue found during of the excavations
of the ancient city of Lucentum on the
shores of the Mediterranean. It is the only
item displayed at the exhibition The Roman
Two-Headed Eagle, organized jointly with the
Spanish Archaeological Museum in Alicante.
The important Roman citizen portrayed in
bronze was holding a special sword in his left
hand – an attribute of military leaders and an-
cient heroes. The pommel of this weapon was
decorated with the image of the two-headed
eagle, which had never before been seen in
the art of Ancient Greece or Rome.
ITAR-TASS, “One of the First Images
of the Two-Headed Eagle is on Display
at the Hermitage to Mark St. George’s
Day”, Moscow, 9 December 2010
The glaSS Bead caBineT.
panelS from The chineSe palace
aT oranienBaum
The Hermitage is ready to introduce the public
to a unique inter-museum project – the restored
Glass Bead Cabinet from the Chinese
Palace at Oranienbaum.
This masterpiece of applied art has had
a rather troubled history. It has long been
known that it was in need of a complex and
expensive restoration procedure. The unique
job of saving the unique panels was entrusted
to the experts from the Hermitage Laboratory
for Scientific Restoration of Textiles.
The outstanding work of the Hermitage experts
was highly praised by their colleagues.
The Glass Bead Cabinet. Panels from the Chinese
Palace at Oranienbaum was awarded
a special Sautov Restoration Prize in the category
“Best Restoration Project” of the “Museum
Olympus” award presented this year.
Ludmila Leusskaya, “Glass Beads
on Olympus”, Sankt-Peterburgskie
Vedomosti, 7 December 2010
The floor-to-ceiling panels, richly embroidered
with glass beads, bring about a surge
of respect for manual labour. Twelve glass
bead panels, 3.5 m by 1.5 m each, used by
Catherine the Great to knock dead her worldweary
guests in a state drawing room, will be
displayed like paintings. In the 18th century,
the connoisseurs of the chinoiserie style
thought that the Imperial “wallpaper” was the
last word in sumptuous interior design, while
the modern viewer will be reminded of fairytales
and the wonders of the East when looking
at these luminous glass panels.
Time Out Peterburg,
“The Glass Bead Cabinet from
the Chinese Palace at Oranienbaum”,
26 November – 9 December 2010
temporary exhIbItIons
porcelain and roSeS.
from The “chriSTmaS gifT”
SerieS
The first dinner service of Empress Elizabeth,
the wedding dishes used by the daughters
of Paul I, Soviet and contemporary porcelain.
What brings them all together is that most romantic
of all flowers, the rose.
The organizers of the exhibition have selected
unique rather than mass-produced objects.
The exhibition has no pieces with printed designs.
The oldest and most valuable object
in the collection is a snuffbox with a picture
of playing pugs.
Vesti.Ru, “Porcelain and Roses:
the Most Romantic Exhibition
at the Winter Palace”, 22 December 2010
The Imperial Porcelain Factory used roses
to decorate the pieces made for Empress Elizabeth.
Garlands of moulded roses could be
seen on the very first “Personal” Service, they
bloomed in the painting of the gilded tea service
made during the life of the founding father
of Russian porcelain, Dmitry Vinogradov.
In Catherine’s age, roses were put on everyday
services, they were woven into monogrammes
and designs on teacups, vases, and
other presentation pieces.
Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti,
“Roses on Porcelain”,
24 December 2010
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