PUSHKIN STATE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
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Address:
Volkhonka St., 12 |
One of the richest world collections of fine arts
from the time immemorial to nowadays is treasured in the Pushkin State
Museum of Fine Arts that is favorably situated in the very center of
Moscow, close to the Kremlin and Red Square. Nowadays it is the second,
after the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, largest museum of foreign art
in Russia.
The Museum originates from the Cabinet of Fine Arts
and Antiquities, established in the 1840s on the initiative of professors
and scientists of the Moscow University. Wonderful collections of the
Cabinet formed the basis of the exposition of the new Museum of Fine
Arts. For the construction of the museum's building the territory of
the former Carriage (Kolymazni) court that is in the very center of
the city not far from the Kremlin was given by Moscow Duma to the University.
The winner of the architectural contest and the author of the project
was Roman Ivanovich Klein. He designed the building that reminds greatly
of an ancient classical temple on the high podium with the Ionic colonnade
along the facade. Its splendid interiors were decorated according to
the styles of certain historical periods that were to be represented
there. 
The solemn opening of the Museum that at first was
officially called the Museum of Fine Arts named after Alexander III
took place on May 31, 1912.
According to the conception worked out by the first
director of the Museum, professor of Moscow University, Doctor of Philology
and Art Historian Ivan Tsvetaev (the father of famous Russian poet Marina
Tsvetaeva) the museum collection was enlarged with the plaster casts
of world-famous works of arts treasured in different museums of Europe.
Thus the new museum was planned as a depository of copies of famous
pictures.
After the Revolution of 1917 the Museum was nationalized
and its collection was greatly enriched by paintings from expropriated
private collections, nationalized Moscow estates and abolished museums
and galleries. In the course of the 20th century the Museum changed
its name more than once. The establishment was given its present name
- the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts - in 1937.
Nowadays there are over 560,000 works of art exhibited
in the halls of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The museum treasures
Egyptian mummies, antique amphorae and craters with images of Greek
and Roman gods and heroes, old steles and sarcophagi, paintings by Rembrandt,
Botichelli, Canaletto, Guardi, Tiepolo, impressive collection of Little
Dutch Masters, impressionists, postimpressionists and modernists and
many other works that form the gold collection of world art heritage.
In the last few years the Museum got several new premises that render
possible exhibiting of many private collections that for many years
stayed inaccessible for the public.
