The STaTe hermiTage muSeum annual reporT

publIcatIons publIcatIons
Khmelnitskaya, Yekaterina. Serafim Sudbinin.
At the Turn of Epochs: from Art Nouveau
to Art Deco. St. Petersburg: Chisty List,
2010. – 164 pp., ills.
The book is devoted to the actor, painter and
sculptor Serafim Sudbinin and porcelain productions
after sketches by him.
Yarovaya, Yelena. The Heraldry of the Genoese
Crimea. The State Hermitage. St. Petersburg:
The State Hermitage Publishers, 2010. –
208 pp., ills.
Comparison of the coats-of-arms on the tombstones
of the Genoese nobility of the 14th and
15th centuries and the depictions of these
in armorials demonstrates the use of heraldry
practices in the Genoese colonies in the
Crimea.
Julia Kagan. Gem Engraving in Britain from
Antiquity to the Present. With a Catalogue
of British Engraved Gems in the State
Hermitage Museum. The Beazley Archive and
Archaeopress. Oxford, 2010. – 496 pp., ills.
For the first time, the author describes changes
in the use of gems, methods of their reproduction,
the nature of patronage and collecting in
England, history of museum collections and
the role of Britain in the study of it. The book
includes A Catalogue of British Engraved Gems
and an appendix (also on CD) with An Alphabetical
Chronological Table of British Gem Carvers
and Imitators made with the American glyptologist
Helen Serras-Herman.
The cuRaToR SerieS
Nikulin, Nikolai. War Memories. The State
Hermitage. 3rd ed. St. Petersburg: The State
Hermitage Publishers, 2010. – 244 pp., ills.
(“Curator” series)
For over thirty years, the author had kept the
manuscript of the book in the drawer of his
desk, without any hope to have it published.
He had barely finished high school, when he
found himself in the most bloodshed sections
of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts, finishing
the war in Berlin. It was a miracle that he survived.
The book is an attempt to rid himself
of the burden of the memories of that war.
In it, the reader will not find optimistically
patriotic battle scenes typical of literary garbage.
The story Nikulin tells is the truth of the
trenches.
pedagogical and
educaTional ediTiTionS
Krollau, Natalia. French Painting of the 19th –
Early 20th Centuries. The State Hermitage.
St. Petersburg: The State Hermitage Publishers,
2010. – 136 pp., ills. (“Your Hermitage” series)
This is a story of the evolution of French painting,
based on works from the collection of the
State Hermitage Museum. The book tells about
the radical changes in the pictorial idiom, connected
with the appearance of Impressionism
and subsequent trends, such as Post-Impressionism,
Fauvism, Cubism and Purism.
The Crouching Boy by Michelangelo. By Sergei
Androsov. The State Hermitage. St. Petersburg:
The State Hermitage Publishers, 2010. –
20 pp., ills. (“Masterpieces of the Hermitage”
series)
The sculpture, known traditionally as the
Crouching Boy, by the Italian Renaissance sculptor,
painter and architect Michelangelo Buonarroti
(1475–1564), came to Russia in 1785
as part of John Lyde-Brown’s collection. The
highest quality of execution confirms that the
unfinished sculpture belongs to Michelangelo.
As was formerly believed, it had been created
c. 1524, during his work in the Capella Medici
in Florence. It is more plausible, however, that,
although conceived about 1523–1524, the
sculpture was made somewhat later, c. 1530–
1534, probably in connection with the sculptor’s
other plan that never materialized.
arT BooKS
Masterpieces of Western European Jewellery
from the 16th to 19th Centuries from the
Hermitage Collection. By Olga Kostyuk.
The State Hermitage. St. Petersburg: The State
Hermitage Publishers, 2010. – 264 pp., ills.
In 2010, the Hermitage started a new publishing
project, art books. The first in the series
was the book devoted to the renowned collection
of Western European and Russian jewellery
of the 16th – 19th centuries. It includes
but 100 objects of the collection of many thousand
works of precious metals and gems. The
core of the collection was the Imperial Gallery
of Precious Objects, which had productions of
the best European jewellers. Some were commissioned
by members of the Imperial family,
others received as diplomatic gifts. The Gallery
acquired not only the most expensive works,
but also the rarest and artistically valuable
ones. Therefore nowadays, the Hermitage jewellery
collection is characterized by exquisite
works of art, rather than just the abundance
of gold, precious stones and platinum.
reSearch and
meThodological puBlicaTionS
Children’s Art Classes as a Factor
in Personality Formation and Creative
Development. Proceedings of the International
Conference. 17–18 January 2008. The State
Hermitage. St. Petersburg: The State Hermitage
Publishers, 2009. – 86 pp., ills.
The volume includes the materials of the conference
devoted to 50 years of the Art Studio
of the School Centre held at the School Centre
Methodology Sector of the State Hermitage
Museum. The conference papers were devoted
to theoretical and practical aspects of the impact
of art classes on the formation of a creative
personality.
The Museum and Problems of “Cultural
Tourism”. Materials of the 8th Round Table.
8–9 April 2010. St. Petersburg: The State
Hermitage Publishers, 2010. – 184 pp., ills.
The materials of the annual Round Table devoted
to the exchange of experiences between
museums.
The First Decade of the 21st Century: New
Language of Art?! Materials of the Russo-British
Round Table with the Newspeak: Today’s British
Art programme. 25 October 2009. Ed. by
S. Kudryavtseva and Ye. Lopatkina. The State
Hermitage; Pro Arte. St. Petersburg: The State
Hermitage Publishers, 2010. – 74 pp., ills.
Modern art became the centre of interests in
the Hermitage policy in 2007, when the Hermitage
20/21 project was officially adopted. In accordance
with the main goals of the project
(the expanding of the twentieth-century art
exposition and the organization of exhibition
and other activities connected with modern
art), several exhibition programmes became
materialized in the Hermitage. The Russo-British
Seminar – Round Table, with the participation
of well-known art critics, curators and
artists from Russia and elsewhere, was held in
connection with the Newspeak: Today’s British
Art exhibition.
The Art of Jewellery and Material Culture.
Eighteenth colloquium: 19–23 April 2010.
Abstracts of papers. The State Hermitage.
St. Petersburg: The State Hermitage Publishers,
2010. – 188 pp.
The Art of Jewellery and Material Culture colloquium
has been held in the Hermitage since
1996. The abstracts published are by experts
in various spheres, viz. archaeologists, gemmologists,
historians, art scholars, anthropologists,
specialists in archival science, designers,
artists and jewellers. In combination,
they give an overall picture of the origin and
development of jewellery, as well as the state
of the art.
92 93