State Russian Museum
Rossi's Mikhailovsky Palace and four other historic buildings holding the largest collection of Russian art.
The museum was founded by decree of Nicholas II in 1895 as the Russian Museum of Emperor Alexander III and opened to the public in 1898. It occupies the Mikhailovsky Palace, built by Carlo Rossi between 1819 and 1825 for Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, whose Empire-style facade, lion-flanked staircase and white hall survive largely intact. The adjoining Benois Wing, completed after the First World War, roughly doubled the display space and now carries much of the later Russian material.
The collection covers a thousand years of Russian art and numbers over four hundred thousand items, from medieval icons including Andrei Rublev's work to eighteenth-century portraiture, the Wanderers, and the avant-garde of Malevich, Kandinsky and Filonov. Two of the most visited paintings are Karl Bryullov's The Last Day of Pompeii and Ilya Repin's Barge Haulers on the Volga. The museum also administers the Mikhailovsky Castle, Marble Palace, Stroganov Palace, the Summer Garden with Peter the Great's Summer Palace, and the Mikhailovsky Garden.
Highlights
- Carlo Rossi's Empire palace with its lion staircase and White Hall
- Bryullov's The Last Day of Pompeii and Repin's Barge Haulers on the Volga
- Avant-garde rooms with Malevich, Kandinsky and Filonov
- Four further historic palaces and two gardens under one museum
